#and will tell select the best move they are definitely going to pull off or something

[loki-zen]

talking to dagny about superpowers the other day and it sounds like even Worm didn’t really tackle the thing that I always find a hard sell about the sorts of powers where the logic is like ‘this person can fight real good because they’re able to calculate everything super fast so they know exactly what actions they need to take and when to dodge and so on’:

namely, that as someone who has spent time practising movement disciplines, i can tell you it’s perfectly possible to know exactly what you need to do and still fuck up the physical execution.

think about like. one physical skill people always like to claim is ‘really’ physics is catching a ball, because there’s like an equation or whatever that will tell you where the ball is going to fall. but anyone who’s played a sport has surely had the experience of knowing exactly where the ball was headed, and just not being able to get to it in time.

unless you have a secret second superpower that gives you inhuman physical reaction times and peak physical fitness and have spent a lot of time practicing acrobatics? kinda feel like you should have a perfect vision of the set of movements you need to complete to dodge the incoming fire while moving quickly into cover, faceplant on the second backflip and eat bullets.

[inuyashaluver]

boyfriend - leah williamson

leah williamson x reader

description: in which your girlfriend is just the definition of boyfriend

warnings: swearing, a little suggestive

a/n: i was writing my requests and got the overwhelming urge to write this because leah is just the definition of boyfriend, i don’t make the rules, i also saw the picture of her this morning and died so here you go lmao

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

your girlfriend, leah, was the literal definition of boyfriend. and yeah, maybe that didn’t make sense, but it did to you.

leah williamson was incredibly protective, supportive and disciplined to the public eye, but to you, she was just your leah.

your leah found comfort in burying her face in the crook of your neck to avoid the rest of the world.

your leah loved to hold your hand or any part of your body at every given moment so everyone knew you were hers and she was yours.

your leah was incredibly stubborn, especially when it came to you. your leah worshipped the ground you walked on.

—

you and leah grew up together in the arsenal youth teams, quickly gravitating towards each other when you both realised how passionate you were about football, exactly like the other person.

when you both got selected for the england teams, you two grew extremely close, finding comfort in just being around each other. you both brought out the best in each other and everyone could see it, both on and off the pitch.

you and leah didn’t have many issues surrounding your years of pining, the two of you would shamelessly flirt from the time you were both 19 and changing that dynamic of being best friends to something more.

“baby, do not go on this date” leah pleads as you held up a forth outfit up to your body, “what do you think?” you turn to face her, a scowl evident on her 19 year old face as she sat on the edge of your bed.

“you look gorgeous, that’s not the point, (y/n)” she spits out, “i don’t want you to go,” leah crosses her arms over her chest and glares at you chuckling in the mirror.

“i want to go, lee baby” you tease, making the girl huff in frustration when you brought out yet another top against you.

“fine, wear the second outfit, see if i care,” she grumbles, picking at her cuticles while you smile at her through the mirror.

you were just pulling her leg, there wasn’t really a date, you just loved to tease leah but you also wanted your relationship to progress, to finally call her yours.

“babe” you call out, moving to stand in between her spread legs, she looks up at you curiously, her glare still a little evident as you smiled down at her.

“what?” she sighs, your hands make your ways to her shoulders, massaging them gently and feeling her relax under your touch.

“there’s no date, you git” you chuckle, leah tenses again, “sorry?” you really couldn’t help but laugh at her face of relief but also mischief as she looked up at you.

“i’m fucking with you, there’s no date” you laugh, leah grabs the sides of your hips and chucks you onto your bed, moving to straddle your hips as she tickled your sides.

“you’re such a little shit!” she laughs, smiling brightly at the bright laughs coming out of your mouth.

“why would you tell me there was a date?” she breathes out, lacing your fingers together as she pinned them by the sides of your head.

“wanted to see how you’d react” you say breathlessly, your chest heaving while an affectionate smile adorns your features.

“you seemed a little jealous, williamson?” you say teasingly, leah shakes her head, pinning you by your hips to the bed with her own, “fuck off, i was not” she defends, giving your hands a squeeze as you laugh up at her.

your heart was beating out of your chest, so was leah’s, but in a good way. a weirdly familiar way.

“you so were” you smirk, “i don’t want you to go” you mock her accent, she rolls her eyes fondly, lifting your hand up and threatening to bite your fingers.

you yelp when her teeth actually does graze your pointer finger, making her chuckle against your skin.

her eyes flicker between your own before falling to your lips, subconsciously wetting hers with her tongue as she looked back up at your eyes.

“looking a little flushed there, gorgeous, you alright?” she teases, you shake your head at her, “i’m fine, but you look a little flushed there, babe, anything you want to tell me?” you tease right back.

she giggles at your words, kissing the corner of your mouth, your breath hitched at how close she was to your lips, feeling her smirk against your skin as she trailed kisses along your cheeks.

she pulls back, dangerously close to your face as she chuckles, both of your pupils were blown out, cheeky grins evident on both of your faces.

leah puts you out of your misery and gives you that kiss you’d both been dreaming of, it was as perfect as a first kiss could go.

a little inexperienced at first but quickly learning from each other as it continued. you hummed against leah’s lips and she can’t help but grin into the kiss.

the kiss lasted for a couple of seconds before she let go of you, pulling you to sit up cross legged in front of her while she offered you a sheepish smile.

“be my girlfriend?” she breathes out, you nod instantly, making your way into her lap and kissing her until the air was knocked out from your lungs.

when you both pulled away, you tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear and leah’s heart fluttered. at the gesture but also the fact you were doing it as her girlfriend. “took you long enough” you grin, she pinches your hip and smirks when you squirm in her lap.

“how about i wear outfit number two and we go out on our own date” you smile cheekily, she presses a quick, tender kiss to your lips in response,

“you’ve got yourself a deal” she whispers against your lips, her hands gently squeezing your hips as you ended up in another kiss.

—

in present times, you and leah moved in together, both of you were extremely successful in your football careers.

leah was the captain of the england senior team and you couldn’t be more proud, showing her how much you loved that armband the first time she wore it.

you and leah had so much love for each other it was sickeningly sweet. both of you were head over heels, affection an understatement for the two of you.

it was obvious in the way you acted around her, dropping anything and everything if she needed something. telling her verbally how much you loved her no matter where you were. giving her heart eyes every two seconds that had her stomach swarming with butterflies.

and in leah’s case, she’s been called a simp way more than she’d like to admit but she didn’t mind. it was true after all.

—

“baby, you’ll get sick like that” leah scolds as you walk out of the change room onto the pitch where she was waiting for you for a pre match lap, your puffer unzipped in just your training kit.

“i’m fine, love” you smile, walking up to her and promptly puckering your lips up at her, she shakes her head fondly, pressing a couple of kisses to your lips while you sighed happily.

she pulls away from you, tugging you closer by the sides of your puffer and zipping it up for you. you smile at her appreciatively, she pinches your cheek gently before grabbing your hand and interlacing it with hers as you both walked around, posing for photos together with cheesy grins if needed.

your cheeks were a little red, not only from leah but the cold as well. leah moves you to stand in front of her again, her arms wrapping around you and prompting you to do the same as she pulled you closer.

she kisses your cheeks repeatedly, feeling them warm up under her lips as she spreads her love on both. “still cold?” she says softly, you nod with a cheeky grin, “very” she narrows her eyes at you amusingly but continues spreading kisses over your entire face, relishing in the soft giggles you were rewarding her with.

suddenly, she gasps, reaching into her pockets with an excited smile. “i forgot!” she exclaims, pulling out two heat packs that were warming up in her pockets, she only did it for you.

she places both of them against your cheeks and you smile happily, letting leah press little kisses to your lips again as she held the packs gently on your face, making sure not to burn you. she would whisper in conversation with you in between the kisses, your stomach lurching at her softness.

“ugh, you two make me sick” beth dry wretches, victoria and alessia laugh while watching you both pull away, “fuck off, beth” leah groans, tugging you impossibly closer as you tucked your head under her chin.

“i’ll remind you she’s my girlfriend, bethany” you tease, leah kisses your temple softly, “you think i don’t know that? you’re attached at the hip” she teases, “leave them, bethy, they’re cute” alessia coos, you send her a little wink of appreciation.

“they’re cute until you catch them fucking,” beth exclaims, you and leah both roll your eyes in unison, “you came to our home, unannounced, uninvited, with the spare key” leah grits out, holding onto you protectively. your hands rub up and down her back in an attempt to calm her down but leah was your defender.

“i told you i was coming over!” beth accuses, “you did fucking not!” leah yells, alessia and victoria laugh at the the thought of you and leah being caught. especially knowing how protective leah was of you. let’s just say a lot of yelling happened that day.

the bickering went back and forth for a bit as you and leah kept cuddling up together.

“you could have the same if you just go up to viv” leah shrugs, beth rolls her eyes at that, “i don’t need to be attached to my girlfriend to show our love” beth defends, “the kisses are nice, beth” you smile, looking up at leah with a smile.

beth chuckles and seems to give in, you and leah giggle as you watch beth run over and latch herself to viv, watching her struggle for a bit before giving up and pulling her into an embrace similar to yours and leah’s.

“we should be couple’s therapists,” you rest your chin on her chest, looking up at her with a soft smile. she kisses you softly again, “we can be whatever you want to be” she says cheekily, making you chuckle when her kisses make their way to your neck, jokingly biting you a couple of times to make you laugh.

—

whenever you and leah were in a large crowd, her true boyfriend nature came out that you just ate up. you were both at the pride of britain awards, her hand firmly planted on the small of your back as you walked around, posing for cameras on the red carpet.

when you two got pulled for interviews, leah tucked you into her side as you answered questions, she would focus on you intently, nodding along with your words and smiling proudly as you talked.

when you’d catch her gaze, her bright smile would make you falter slightly and you’d have to recover while her hand rubbed gently up and down your back.

you both answer generic interview until you approach a very special one. “it’s one nil” the interviewer says, leah and your eyes visibly widen, leah pressing her hand into your back as you both approached.

“are you joking?” leah smiles, “no it is!” the interviewer exclaims, “arsenal?” leah questions excitedly, “did you hear that?” leah grins at you, “yeah, baby i did” you chuckle affectionately, your head falling to her shoulder for a minute while she chats excitedly with the interviewer.

“this girl bleeds arsenal” you smile up at her, she nods without a second thought, showing off her earring with a proud smile.

“so, leah, if you had to pick between (y/n) and arsenal, who would you pick?” the interviewer says jokingly, though leah takes it seriously,

“now, hold on, i’m gonna go with my girl in arsenal, without a doubt” she says smugly, seemingly proud of her answer.

you laugh brightly, kissing her cheek fondly as she grins, “she was joking” you laugh, leah looks down at you cheekily, “don’t care” she taunts, her hand moving to rest on your hip to answer the rest of the interview.

you both got invited to an after party, making your rounds together with bright smiles, seeing people you haven’t seen for ages.

everytime you would talk to leah, she would bend her head to your level to make sure you were speaking directly into her ear, not wanting to miss out on anything you say.

and so, when you mentioned to leah you wanted to go home, you both left promptly with leah leading you out.

—

another instance of your girlfriend just radiating boyfriend energy was when you both needed to go on a bus for the lionesses on camp.

leah was talking to keira and georgia who she hadn’t seen in a while so you went on the bus first.

a few of the younger girls send you a wave so you go over with a bright smile. sitting next to maya as you entertained the young ones as they teased you about your love life.

it was until your girlfriend got on the bus with a little scowl at realising you left without her. “who do you think you are?” leah grumbles, grabbing your hand and dragging you out of the seat you were in to another one closer to the back.

you hear the laughs of the girls as leah drags you from your seat.

“leah!” you reprimand with a laugh, “who?” she whips her head towards you, about to shove you into the window seat.

“love,” you sigh, she smiles cheekily, “that’s better” she pushes you towards the window seat, draping your legs over hers as you both chatted.

leah snapped a photo of you and smiled at the result, adding it to her folder dedicated to you. “you’re so cute” leah coos, kissing you quickly and dropping her grumpy attitude. “you’re cuter” you grin, pressing another kiss to her lips before you snuggle up to her.

“i’m running out of storage” leah frowns, going to her camera roll and gasping at how many photos you have.

you lean over and gasp as well, grabbing her hand with the phone in it and looking at the screen, “baby, oh my god, what’ve you got in there” you laugh,

“i don’t know, let’s see” she makes you sit closer while you both went through her camera roll, laughing at some of the funnier pictures and shoving her phone down at the more explicit ones.

“i need to revisit this picture later” she winks at you when one of you and leah during that first day of captaincy. “leah cathrine” you warn, she smirks, “sorry” she coughs.

your heart quickened when you realised how many photos she had of you, making up almost all of her camera roll.

“lovey, you can delete some photos of me, half of them are duplicates” you chuckle, leah looks at you offendedly, “excuse me? they are all different” she scoffs, flicking between two nearly identical photos while pointing out little differences.

“babe, that’s the same picture” you laugh brightly, leah stifles her own laugh, “it is not! god, just break up with me then, you awful woman, can’t even have a picture of my wife in my phone without you on my ass” she grins,

“wife? i don’t remember you proposing?” you tease, “in due time, my girl” she smiles, kissing you breathlessly until you were completely flushed in the face.

“here, i’ll help you delete some photos,” you hold your hand out for her phone and she holds it instead, “you delete a single one and i’ll really break up with you” she mocks, you gasp offendedly

“i’m wounded” you pout, she makes quick work of fixing it with a kiss, “kissed it better” she grins, squeezing your thigh gently as your head fell to her shoulder.

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

you know the drill - just pretend it’s you, ily beffy

liked by alessia and 44,232 others

leahwilliamsonn: she’s baby girl

view all comments

yourname: it was brilliant, it was powerful, it was leah williamson!!!!

↳ leahwilliamsonn: stop it

↳ yourname: never, it’s literally my job

↳ leahwilliamsonn: your job is football

↳ yourname: my job is annoying you for the rest of my life

↳ leahwilliamsonn: can’t wait xx

bethmead_: sick

↳ yourname: stop hating, bethany

↳ leahwilliamsonn: yeah, bethany

↳ viviannemiedema: yeah, bethany

↳ bethmead_: the betrayal

[scribblesofagoonerr]

God loves a trier though, right? | Inner Demons

⟫ Alphabet Challenge, G - God loves a trier though, right?

Pairings: leah williamson x teen reader, arsenal wfc x teen reader

Hi, sorry for the wait on this. This is a bit scrappy, not been proofread at all and I'm currently battling a headache while writing this so apologies if it doesn't make much sense, like at all!

I'm overwhelmed by the amount of support on this. It's definitely become one of my favourite things to write!

As always, my asks are open for anyone to drop me any ideas’ on this fic or anything else that people would like to see be written, however, I am only comfortable writing anything platonic though :)

Reader returns from the hospital, which leads to a heart-to-heart with some usual classic teenage sarcasm.

TW: heavy angst and mentions of SH, MH, suicide and death.

"Home sweet home" Leah pulls the car into the driveway and turns off the ignition, turning to look at you.

You fake a smile in the blonde's direction as you tug at the sleeves of your hoodie to fight the urge. "Glad to be home" You speak quietly.

You knew going home wasn't going to be as easy as you thought it would be, the reminder was right there in front of you.

A reminder of what you did, what could have been your end.

Until Leah had walked in and saved you.

You didn't really want to die, the voices on the internet were just too much to deal with.

The hate from the fans. The pressure from the media.

At times, everything can be overwhelming. But, being home makes it easier to regain control of being able to hurt yourself.

If you're being honest, that really does scare you.

The vague memory from that night still haunts you as you walk through the flat, sending a chill up your spine.

"Bubs?" Leah calls out to you, as she watches you freeze as you pass the bathroom.

"Uh, I'm... I'm a bit tired. Think I'm gonna have a nap" You tell her, slowly moving in the direction of your bedroom.

"Alright, I'll go and cook us some dinner. I doubt you've eaten much in the last few days if hospital food is anything to go by huh?" Leah jokes as she presses a light kiss to the top of your head. "Have a good nap, I'll wake you up when it's ready, yeah?" She adds.

Slumping into your own space, you glance around your bedrom and you're glad to see it's exactly how you left it.

You had missed your private space when you was in the hospital and you're just glad enough that the blonde hadn't gone to the extreme measures of removing your bedroom door at least.

"So the girls wanted to come around tonight but I thought it was best to hold off for now" Leah slides the dinner plate in front of you, you can't help but smile when you see it's smiley faces and nuggets.

One of the only things that Leah can actually cook.

You actually missed the small things like that while you were on an extended stay in the hospital.

"Sure" You agree as you reach for the ketchup bottle and squeeze a decent amount on your plate. "I'll be able to see them tomorrow at training, won't I?" You ask.

"Bubs" You can tell Leah is cautious to speak.

"I can train, can't I?" You look directly at the blonde as you await her answer.

Although you have a feeling that you're going to be sitting on the sidelines for a while.

"I have to train, Le! I can't put it off. I've gotta be ready to be selected for the matchday squad!" You insist as you stab your fork into a chicken nugget.

You watch as Leah frowns and hesitates to speak and that confirms your thoughts about it.

"We have a meeting tomorrow with Jonas, Kim, and some of the other staff at the club to discuss things--" Leah begins to explain, starting to eat her own dinner.

"I'm being sidelined?!" You interject in disbelief.

Leah shakes her head as she swallows her food before she speaks. "I didn't say that, Y/N" She states.

You can't help but scoff. "But you sort of did. I can't be sat on the bench-- I can't do it!" You try to insist. "I... I need some kind of purpose. I need a reason to get up in the morning!" You fight back the tears that threaten to spill.

You have to play. You have to be able to do that. You can't have that taken away from you.

"Bubs, let's just see what is said tomorrow. Okay?" Leah frowns and tries to take hold of your hand as you snatch it back.

"I have to be on the pitch, Leah. I can't be sidelined. I... I just can't do it" You state as you push your chair back and bolt up from the table.

"Where are you going?" Leah asks, confused.

"I need to get out. I'm going for a walk, or is that not allowed now?" You sneer as you move to walk over to the coat rack and grab one of your jackets.

"I'll come with you" Leah stands up from the table.

You huff and roll your eyes. "I don't need to be monitored. I want to be alone" You all but plead with her.

"I... I can't let you do that. You know I can't" Leah shakes her head in disagreement. "So we either go for a walk together, or we don't go at all" She states sternly.

"Guess we're both going then, wonderful" You mumble sarcastically and shove a pair of trainers on.

"It's cold out here this evening" Leah mumbles as she tries to pull her jacket more around to try and get warm, you decide to take a walk alongside the canal not too far away from the flat as you always thought clearer when you were near water.

"You didn't have to come with me" You mutter as you keep your hands shoved in your pockets.

You'd never been too much of a fan of the cold, but you just needed an escape as you felt like the walls were caving in around you being inside the flat.

"You know that I did" Leah replies quietly, exhaling a sigh.

"Oh yeah, of course, that's cos' I'm on suicide watch, right?" You can't help but joke with the blonde.

Leah tenses up at the mention of the subject that's joked about so casually as the two of you walk alongside the canal.

The blonde can't help but try and reach for your bicep to try and pull you away from being too near to the edge of the water.

"You can relax a bit Le, I'm not gonna try and off myself again" You continue to crack jokes about death like you're talking about the weather. "Although jumping into the water seems like a great idea" You add.

The blonde clicks her tongue. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that sometimes" She states in disagreement as she hesitantly looks at the water, trying to pull you back from the edge.

"It's the easier coping method" You quietly admit as you shrug your shoulders as you linger dangerously close to the edge of the water. "How deep do you think it is?" You ask, looking in the direction of the blonde.

"Come away from the water" Leah tries to pull you away from the edge again.

"Why? Afraid I'll actually jump in" You fire back as you can't help but laugh slightly. "You know I can swim, right?" You ask her.

"I know you can swim, but..." Leah looks nervous as she eyes your every move.

"But you think I'd rather try and purposely drown instead?" You wonder, already knowing her answer.

Leah shakes her head and exhales a sigh. "Y/N" She states in a knowing tone of voice that you knew all too well.

"The pressure is too much sometimes, the media... They can be ruthless" You admit quietly, looking back out to the water in front of you.

"I know" Leah replies just as quiet, waiting for you to speak again.

You tug at the sleeves of your hoodie and bite your bottom lip. "It's all too much sometimes. Sometimes I think the world is against me" You tell her, honestly.

"Bubs..." Leah starts to speak.

"Why were you and Katie fighting when I was in the hospital?" You change the subject, refusing to let your vulnerability show.

Leah exhales another sigh. "It's complicated" She says.

"Bullshit" You can't help but scoff and roll your eyes.

"Language" The blonde scolds.

"Well, why aren't you?" You repeat the question, wanting to know the answer.

"Well, adults have disagreements sometimes" Leah states, looking out to the water.

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. "C'mon Le, I'm a not naive kid-- Why're you not getting along?" You feel like you're constantly repeating yourself right now.

Leah exhales a sigh and hesitates to speak. "She just thinks that my decision was wrong, to allow the doctors to detain you in the hospital" She explains.

"I know that. You guys were literally fighting about it right in front of me" You remind her with the usual teenage cocky attitude you have.

"She thinks you should've been at home instead, with all of us watching out for you" The blonde defender continues to explain. "But Y/N... I don't know how I can keep you safe when you're at home. You joke about death so casually, I'm so scared that I am going to have to leave you alone, that when I come home, I'll find you lying dead on the floor in a pool of your own blood. At... At least this way when you were in the hospital, I knew you were safe and you couldn't hurt yourself" She confesses the truth.

The truth that leaves an eerie silence.

"I knew you were safe and you couldn't hurt yourself" Her words were like a continuous loop in your head.

Her confession hits you suddenly, leaving you feeling numb.

[someplace-darker]

Kinktober Day 11: Erotic Photos | Jake 'Hangman' Seresin

Pairing: Jake "hangman" seresin x reader (no y/n)

Wordcount: 1.5k

Warnings: 18+, PWP, Nudes, Erotic photos, fingering, finger sucking, semi public sex (they are literally still on base), reader is afab but no pronouns are used

Summary: The only way you're able to get Hangman to shut up is creative to say the least.

A/N: aaaaand 2/2 is done for the night. Honestly pretty proud of this one as well, idk what the need for hangman is but he's a sexy bastard and i want to punch him in the face. Enjoy.

There is one thing you know for certain about Hangman; and that is that he is the biggest asshole you’ve ever met in your entire life.

That of course, did not stop you from sleeping with him, that cocky smile and ‘i’m perfect at everything i do wink wink’ behavior enough to draw you in like a moth to a flame. You’d give it to him, he definitely had the right to be cocky, he was the best sex you’ve ever had in your entire life. However, he’s also the brand of asshole that grinds your nerves more than any other person is possibly able to.

Especially right now, gloating over the dogfight training exercise he somehow managed to win against Phoenix in the middle of a lesson. It might be different if it just happened, but it had not, it happened two days ago. The air in the room is tense which is impressive considering it’s mostly large open space. Rooster’s told Jake to shut up about four times, Maverick’s had his face in his hand for the past five minutes, and Phoenix looks like she’s two seconds away from making him a statistic. 

His eyes pop over to you as if he can feel your unimpressed gaze from the other side of the room, throwing a wink your way before opening his mouth again. “I mean come on, if we’re going to get this mission done the right way, wouldn’t it be better if someone who can actually make a shot leads it?”

You’ve refrained from getting involved so far, too worried about that fat fucking mouth of his accidentally giving too much away about your relationship if you did. Jake has only been silent a few times, one of them being the first time he saw you naked. That memory makes an idea form, pulling your phone from one of the many pockets in your navy-issued pants and unlocking it under the table. 

It takes a few seconds of scrolling in your pictures before you find what you need, clicking on three images and selecting share, carefully tapping his icon in your messages before sending them. You set your phone on your lap and wait, glancing up just in time for the notification to buzz his. Phoenix is busy telling him off when he picks it up to check, smile immediately dropping to a doumbfounded look when he opens your message.

You can see the clench in his jaw from your seat, a burning feeling in your chest when he is finally able to tear his eyes away from the screen long enough to glare at you. In return you shrug, putting on a look of faux confusion before looking back to Monica who seems delighted that he’s finally shut his mouth. It’s quiet for the first time in twenty minutes and Maverick is quick to take notice, removing his hands from his face and sighing “you guys done now?”

Hangman clears his throat, blinking back down to his phone one more time before clicking it off and returning his attention to the front “yes Captain.”

-

You’re quick to make it to a locker room after Mav dismisses all of you, politely declining Bob’s invitation to join the rest of the group for drinks, instead opting to wait for Jake who you know is going to say something about your move. 

Of course you’re right, the metal door opening and shutting quickly after you’ve changed out of your flight suit. You don’t bother turning to look at him, his torso pressing to your back. Sometimes you forget how broad he truly is compared to you, and now is one of the times where you’re instantly reminded. No time is given to dwell on it, his phone being stuck in front of your face before you can say anything.

The pictures you sent him are on full display.

One is of you kneeling in front of a mirror with no clothes. The next of your cunt with your fingers buried inside. And the last picture most recently- a blurry snapshot of you on your hands and knees in front of him as he fucks you with a hand in your hair, mascara running down your face. 

“Mind explaining what the fuck this is?” his tone is blunt, voice low and gravelly against your back. You shrug, pushing his hand out of your way to hang up the last of your stuff. The second your locker is shut his hands are on you, spinning you around and backing you into the metal until you’re eye level with him. Jake is many things, and intimidating is definitely one of them, but it only makes you yearn for him. 

“What?” you exhale, cocking your head to the side and smirking “can’t take being speechless?” You’re playing with fire and you know it, you might as well be a professional, but the way he squints and trails his gaze up and down your body has you excited.

His knee slots between your legs, the now thin fabric of your shorts doing absolutely nothing as a barrier. “You think it’s so cute to send those pictures to me like that, why don’t we make more, huh?” You open your mouth to respond but end up moaning when he bounces his knee against your pussy. Instead you can only nod eagerly, fumbling for your phone and putting it in his hand. 

Hangman opens the camera on your phone before reaching to tug your shirt up over your chest, hooking his finger in the center of your bra and pulling down to put your tits on display. Hunger flashes across his face, rolling your nipple between his fingers and pinching until you whine, the familiar shit-eating grin returning to his mouth. 

“You’re an asshole,” you grit out, fighting your own pleasure just to be able to bite back at him for a millisecond. 

“Maybe,” he replies, trailing his finger from your chest down past your navel before pushing underneath the waistline of your shorts and finding your clit “but you seem pretty eager, so I can’t be all that bad.” 

You hate that he’s right, you hate his stupid fucking face, but god you need him so badly it’s near painful. 

He holds your phone up and leans back so you’re completely in frame, circling your clit with his fingers until your mouth drops open in a gasp. “Smile,” he coos condescendingly before snapping the picture, flash making your eyes burn and your head spin. It’s delectable. 

“Jake,” you whine, bending your knees to lower yourself further onto his fingers and leg, not caring how desperate you may appear right now. He leans forward to press his mouth against yours harshly, teeth gnashing together briefly before turning into a tangle of spit and tongues. 

Hangman readjusts his hand to push into your pants further, curling two fingers into your cunt and pumping them in and out until you’re panting against his lips. The ventilations lines of the locker are digging into your back but you can’t seem to care, the palm of Jake’s hand pressing against your clit as he fingers you like his life depends on it. Once more he’s pulling away to snap a picture, this time looking more wrecked than before, lips swollen and red from his kiss while his hand is further down your shorts. 

“Close,” you whimper, grinding down onto his hand. 

“So desperate,” he comments, pressing his forehead to your sweat coated hairline, and it’s somehow the most intimate part of the entire situation. His fingers curl faster now, bouncing his knee for added friction, whispering sweet nothings that you barely catch until your knees give out. The only thing that keeps you from falling to the ground as you cum is his leg between yours and his arm pressed to your body.

This is the closest you’ll get to flying outside of the cockpit of your jet, satisfaction and thrill chasing each other up and down your spine. “Good,” he sighs and pulls his hand from your pants once you stop twitching, his fingers coated in your cum. He brings his hand up to your mouth and leans back to take two more pictures, one of you sucking your orgasm off of his hand, eyes dark and focused on the lens as tears streak down your cheeks. The last of you sticking your tongue out as it drips from your mouth to your chest. 

Jake helps you readjust your clothes and brush stray hairs out of your face, placing your phone in your back pocket.

“Next time you want to pull a stunt like that, send me those. I think they’re going to be my favorite,” he smiles one more time before kissing you with a surprising gentleness. Then, he steps back and clicks his tongue, winking at you “see you friday.”

He exits the room and leaves you reeling, sated and with a few more pictures in your camera roll than before. 

[rustingcat]

Vigilante

Kara was late.

She hated being late, but the amount of paperwork she had to sign was much larger than she anticipated, and the lack of signal in the classified room in the DEO meant that she couldn't alert Lena on time.

Kara made it to the lab an hour later, more exhausted than she realised.

"Kara! Is everything okay?" Lena asked the moment Kara put her bag down.

"Yes, I'm so sorry for the delay. I had to sign a LOT of papers for the DEO." Lena seemed so engulfed in the work, their work. The last thing she wanted was for Lena to feel like she's forced to take on the load.

"The DEO? Did something happen?" The worry in her voice was clear. Kara put a reassuring smile on her face to take some of it away.

"Yes, yes. I just signed an employment contract, I'm officially no longer a vigilante!" Kara said with a small chuckle.

"Oh, why the change? I remember you weren't a fan of working for the government before, especially with everything that went down with Colonel Hailey." Lena walked closer to her, a concern not completely gone.

"Well, now that my identity is public knowledge, Alex was very adamant in reminding me how open I am for lawsuits. Both private ones and from the government, like they could potentially sue me for stuff they ask me to do! How crazy is that?"

"Did you sign it already? I could go over it to make sure they don't put any peculiar articles or subsections."

"It's ok, Alex is still in touch with Lucy Lane. They went over the contract together several times before presenting it to me. Lucy is really good with this stuff." She reassured her.

"So you're a government official?"

"Yeah, free from any Supergirl related lawsuits, and with some pretty sweet tax benefits. Plus all of the salary they wanted to give me is going to go to different kinds of selected charities of my choosing, so that's awesome."

"I'm glad it all worked out."

"Me too." Kara breathed in relief.

"I have some news, too." Lena said as an excited smile spread on her face.

"Do tell," Kara said, biting her lip as a smile matching Lena started spreading.

"Okay, while you were off signing what was no doubt a mountain of paperwork," Kara nodded, "I found and fixed the problem with the distributor." Lena proclaimed proudly.

"What was the problem?" Kara asked, matching her excitement.

"We switched the materials connecting it to the compressor, but not the ones connected to the bio-terminal!" She explained quickly, her hands moving around in excited blur to match.

"Oh Rao! So it means–"

"We can start testing!"

"Ahh- Lena that's amazing!" Kara crushed into her best friend, giving her the big tight hug she deserves. She absolutely loved hugging Lena, really she took any opportunity she got. Feeling her warp around her tightly as if not wanting to let go, her smell that somehow always smelled amazing and feeling her heartbeat so close to hers. Hugging Lena was amazing, and she really deserved the most amazing hug after that discovery.

"Wait, we don't have their DNA to test it with." Kara noted once they pulled away.

"It's just a test to see if it can even process something like that, It doesn't have to be theirs. We already have exactly what we need." Lena explained.

"What do you mean?" Kara was confused, they didn't collect any DNA ahead of time.

"Samples of two specimens of the same biological sex, not to mention a combination of human and non-human DNA." Lena smiled at her.

"Oh." The room suddenly felt hotter. "Yeah, no… yes I see. Yeah that- that would definitely work." They would be combining their DNA. She and Lena. Their biological data would be combined. Kara felt very normal about this.

"Will you be able to extract some of your blood? If not, we can try saliva." Lena asked and she started to look around for the tubes.

"I think I can," Kara answered, looking at her fingers in an attempt to decide which one would be easier to cut. It's not like she would have to worry about the long term effect of the wound as it would heal once she stepped out into the sun.

Lena was already grabbing a syringe by the time Kara decided to go with her thumb, hoping to make the surface of the wound big enough to extract more blood.

She checked with her tongue to see which of her teeth is the sharpest –her upper left fang, and attempted her first try. It was painful, yet unsuccessful. She braced herself for the unavailable pain and tried again. The metallic taste in her mouth paired with the pounding pain in her finger told her she was successful. She took out her thumb and tried to lift it in a way that no blood would spill out. She held it above the tube Lena handed to her, letting the small drops fill it as much as she could, squeezing a bit despite the pain, until she was satisfied with the amount.

A quick walk to the window, letting the reflected rays of the sunshine upon her finger, fixed the little cut she created. She only wished Lena had similar powers. The syringe made her cut relatively small, but a cut was still a cut in Kara’s book. Lena was pressing a small piece of cotton to her arm, holding it tightly as she worked.

Kara walked closer to her. She was healed at this point and just as familiar with the machine as Lena, it was her turn to put on some work. She took Lenas wounded arm and gave it a small kiss to make it better. Lena's cheeks were immediately coloured with a light share of pink.

"All better now." Kara smiled at her. "Do you mind if I take it from here? You can keep pressing on the arm."

Lena simply nodded.

Inserting their blood samples carefully, Kara directed the machine to start the process. It was odd, she thought to herself, seeing all of the biological specification options for the combined data of her and Lena's DNA. Afraid to make a mistake, she slowly pressed on each button, choosing to unspecify everything before starting the process.

Kara looked at Lena with an exciting smile, biting down both her upper and bottom lips in the anticipation.

"And now we wait." Lena smiled back.

They watched in silence as the machine processed their data, searching for any errors or possible problems. They went through the math and the coding multiple times, they were at the very least confident in their work. The test was not to see a baby going through a full term, that process would take a few months even in their very advanced machine. Not to mention that due to the possibility of success, they knew that their first test subject should be for people who would be willing parents. So the test itself was only to see if the machine can prepare their given data to what could later become an embryo and then a healthy fetus should they choose to continue.

The process bar got closer to the end. No errors yet.

Lena was still pressing on her wound as she followed the process bar closely with her eyes. Kara wasn't sure if it was worry, tension or excitement on her face. Probably a combination of the three. She couldn't say she was faring any better, chewing in her bottom lip with similar emotions.

The bar got closer to the end. 97%, 98%, 99%, 100%.

Kara instinctively inhaled quickly. Holding her breath until the bar disappeared completely, replaced by a 'process complete' message on the screen.

"Oh my god!" She heard Lena exhale in relief.

"It worked!" Kara turned to face her, mouth wide open in shock and excitement.

"It did!" Lena confirmed in amazement.

They were hugging again before Kara fully realised she was doing it. Jumping in excitement in Lena’s arms as the latter laughed in response. When she settled down she noticed how close their faces were to each other, she could feel the heat radiating off of Lena's face warm her own. Suddenly their excited hearts became louder to her ears as she watched Lena wet her own lips. Kara instinctively mimicked the movement. They stayed like that for a moment, before Lena suddenly pulled away. Kara felt a pang of disappointment she could not name.

"I should check on this one project before I leave for today. Could you finish everything here?" Lena hurried to find her back, refusing to meet Kara's eyes.

"Sure," she had no problem wrapping everything herself. "What do you want to do with the PF?" It was the name they decided on for a successful processed DNA combination, a shorthand for Potential Fetus.

"It's not important, you can dispose of it." Lena finished collecting her stuff and exited before Kara could respond.

"Right." She muttered to the empty room. The project she went to check on must've been important.

Kara turned her attention back to the machine. She was familiar with the options, she designed the UI herself after all, yet they gave her pause. The button to proceed to the next stage had somehow become the most fascinating thing in the world. Flash images of small hands, a wild patch of dark hair and big striking green eyes passed through her mind in quick succession. She only noticed she clicked the button once a warning message asking her if she was sure she'd like to proceed popped up on the screen. Small panic went through her body as she realised what she almost did, Rao she almost greenlighted the creation of a baby for her and Lena.

She quickly pressed no, and moved on to check the other options. She had no need to restart the process to respect the bio-data for the PF, nor make changes to the DNA. She stared at the button to terminate the PF and all data related to it, but couldn't bring herself to do it. The images flashed her mind again. She wasn't sure what it was but she couldn't bring herself to do it, she couldn't press the button.

A message from Lena asking if she wanted a ride home made her notice the time. She sent her a quick message saying she would be right there, and turned back to the machine. Kara made a quick decision to store the data for later use, just in case they wanted to reexamine it, of course. Plus it was their first success, it could also be a reminder of their progress.

Kara finished turning off whatever unnecessary parts to keep the power consumption at a minimum, went over everything twice and spared a moment to stare at the container, before she left.

The images followed her to her dream that night, along with a familiar dimpled smile by her side.

Read in order in AO3

[mapileonxputellas]

Your Royal Highness (Mapi Leon x Reader)

Request can be found here x Not the biggest fan of how this turned out but here you go! Any Christmas requests still welcome! 2.5k words.

You didn’t like talking about your family. You were an open book about pretty much anything else but not that, everyone simply knew that you had two brothers who you had a strained relationship with and that your mother had died when you were only a baby.

In fact you never really had anyone special in your life until you met Mapi one fateful afternoon in Barcelona just under three years ago. You’d started off as just friends but the pandemic showed you how much she really meant to you and as soon as you could you made the move a year later.

Of course when Mapi had introduced you to everyone they were all suspicious, you had an amazing penthouse in the centre of Barcelona and always paid for any meals out having only just completed your medical degree. But you just assured them that you had the money for it and wanted to treat those you now considered your own friends.

When you found out your girlfriend as well as all your best friends had been selected for the Euro’s you decided to keep your attendance a surprise, simply sending them off with all your luck. Of course you had a plan in place, having booked your leave from work months in advance to have the chance to see them play live no matter where it was being held and the implications that could have for you.

Then Alexia’s injury happened and it took all your strength to keep this secret as Mapi cried over the phone to you. Something that you could count on your hands the number of times that had happened.

All of which concluded with you sat in a stadium in London, the first time you’d been back in the city for a very long time.

Just a few rows in front of you, you spotted the La Reina herself watching the teams warm up and you couldn’t help yourself in temporarily sitting down next to her.

“I’m so sorry Alexia.” You started off, her head quickly darting in your direction. “Mind if I keep you company?”

“I guess you’ll do.” Even the injury couldn’t stop one of your best friends teasing you. “I’m guessing this is a surprise.”

“Ding ding.”

“She’s going to be so happy to see you. She literally hasn’t stopped talking about you all week, going on to all the Madrid players about how her girlfriend is a doctor, plus how, in her words, ‘hot’ you are.”

“Well there’s no lies there….”

You could see the team were struggling having lost their captain, conceding in the first minute. But they were all warriors and the 4-1 victory was definitely what they deserved.

You always loved watching Maria play but seeing her on this stage almost made you emotional. She dedicated her whole life to football and no-one deserved this more than her in your eyes.

At the end of the game the players were slowly making their way around the pitch, speaking to the fans and you took your position next to the barrier.

The first to notice you was Claudia, who almost did a double take as she made her way over to you.

“Y/N?”

“Surprise.” You couldn’t help but pull the girl into a hug. “Congratulations on the win.”

“Thank you, Mapi didn’t mention you were here.”

“That’s because she doesn’t know yet.”

Slowly one by one the players came and greeted you, even sneaking in a cuddle with Irene’s son when they all gathered around you but the woman you most wanted to see was trailing at the back, trying to speak to all the fans she could possibly see.

As she got closer you could see she was in autopilot mode right now, the smile though it speared real you could tell was fake and the chat was muted. You kept quiet as she spoke to the family next to you but once she was finished and turned your way, the tears immediately sprung into both your eyes.

“You know I’ve flown all this way, can I not even get a hug for that?” You’d barely even finished asking the question before she gathered you in her arms. The barrier between you both long forgotten as she buried her head in your neck, arms tightly wrapped around your waist. “Well done today.”

What felt like hours was merely just a few minutes as you forgot about the world around you. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here?” She pulled away but kept her arms wrapped around you, connecting your lips before you could reply, a kiss filled with emotion and love.

“I wanted to surprise you. You really thought I was going to stay at home when I could be watching you here.”

“I thought you were working.” She admitted.

“I booked this off months ago, I knew you would be here.” You assured her. “How are you feeling?”

“Things are just so tense right now, I feel like everything is just falling apart around us.” You’d been here sounding board these past few years when it came to the national team, you knew how much she loved playing for the team but you also knew how hard the federation were being on the players. “Plus Alexia is heartbroken.”

“All you need to remember now is just to control your own game.” You assured her, grasping her chin so she wouldn’t break the eye contact. “You can’t fix the problems around you, just be your amazing self and you’ll know you gave it your all.”

“When can I see you again?” She asked noticing the stewards starting to clear the area as the players began to say goodbye to their families around you.

“I’m here as long as you are, I’ll be at the games and if you’ve got any spare time just let me know.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

Irene sent you a message when you got home that night, thanking you for the surprise and that all the girls could see an improvement in Mapi’s mood from just seeing you. Just when you thought you’d somehow gone under the radar that evening you got a message.

W: Let me know when you’re free, I think we need to catch up little sister x

…..

It wasn’t until after the group stage had finished that you could see Mapi for more than five minutes after a match. Thankfully their wins against Denmark and Finland were enough to secure them second in the group but that meant facing England, the hosts, in the quarter final.

The last few days had also been pretty stressful for yourself, you knew that coming to England would be risky and stressful but you could never have envisioned the amount they would hound you. They had somehow managed to locate the hotel you were staying at and you could see from the day after the first match there was a high but discreet security presence around you. Of course that meant speaking to your family but you didn’t mention Mapi’s name wanting to tell her yourself. Which you knew would have to be done today.

“Can you speak any English?” Mapi asked as we sat in a boat going down the Thames, your treat for the date afternoon, her arm wrapped around my shoulder as we gently drifted down the river, just the two of us and the worker.

“I wouldn’t say I’m fluent but I know quite a lot.”

“Could you ever see yourself living abroad? Like away from Barca?”

“Barca’s my home and you’re there.” You said. “I guess I’ve actually got something to tell you.”

“I knew you were distracted these past few days.” She said, moving slightly so her body was angled towards me. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been keeping a secret from you, well from everyone, and I don’t know what’s going to happen now so I need to tell you.”

“What secret?”

“I always told you that I had no family and whilst that is true in some ways, it’s a whole lot more complicated than what I’ve been telling you and everyone else.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” She tried to reassure you, noticing the anxiety building up in your mannerisms, gently holding your hand to stop the fidgeting.

“I moved to Barcelona when I was just five months old, I was shipped out here to be brought up by a bunch of maids and butlers. My mother had died a week earlier. My father and brothers would visit occasionally but that stopped when I was around ten years old. Since then I could count the number of times I’ve seen them on one hand.”

“So are you Spanish?”

“I now have a Spanish passport and I would consider myself Spanish but I’m actually English.”

“Shit. Have you spoken to your family since you got here?”

“That’s the thing, they’ve located me.”

“Located you?” Now there is where it gets difficult for you to explain.

“This is probably going to come as a big shock to you but my father is the Prince of Wales, my brothers are Prince William and Harry. My mother was, is, Princess Diana.”

“That’s why you have all that money?”

“They send me an allowance of sorts but I put that towards my bills and treat you all but the majority of it goes to charity. I don’t need that and I don’t really like to think that my life is built around their money when they didn’t even want me.”

“Why did they send you away like that?”

“My mother always wanted me to have a private life and then I think in the grief of everything they couldn’t cope with a baby and they shipped me away.”

“How do you feel about it all now?” She asked, gently gripping my head to rest on her shoulder.

“It’s weird because when they reached out to me it didn’t feel like I was going to meet my family. I met with them yesterday and I just didn’t feel anything. I have my family in Barcelona, in my friends, in you. I’ll always be sad for the family I could have had but I’m more than happy with the life I’ve made.”

“What’s going to happen now?”

“When I spoke to them they were keen to make an effort now but I guess we’ll just see, I personally hope the news never gets out. That’s why I wanted to tell you though, I want you to find out from me and I’ll tell the rest of the team as well.”

“They were the ones that missed out. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and I’m so lucky to have you in my life.”

“Wow is this Maria getting soppy?”

“Shut up. You know I hate that name as well.”

“Not when it’s me.” You were the only person she would allow to call her Maria, first it started off as a joke but it developed into your own little thing.

“Just to confirm who will you be supporting at the match now I know you have connections with the enemy?”

“Spain Maria, always.”

…..

That night Mapi managed to sneak you back into the team meal to see the players before the game in a few days’ time. Thankfully they had split off into smaller groups and this was just the friends that you had in the Spanish team from Barca.

“Where did you two go today?” Claudia asked as we sat down. “I’ve literally not seen you all day.”

“Aww did you miss us.” You teased. “I actually took her on a boat cruise down the Thames, just us two.”

“You little romantic.” Patri teased. “Turning all British to see the sights.”

“Yeah about that….” It felt like now was the right time to tell all your closest friends. “I’ve actually got something to tell you all.”

“You’re pregnant?” Claudia shouted.

“Shut up Pina.”

“You’re getting married?” Aitana added.

“No this is actually about me.” You felt Mapi grab your hand underneath the table, softly tracing patterns on the back of your palm. “I want to be honest with you all and since we’re in England a lot of things have happened. Since Mapi introduced me to you all, you’ve all been so welcoming and took me into your little family and I couldn’t be more grateful for you all.”

You took a sip of water just to calm the nerves, receiving a reassuring smile from Mapi.

“I know you hate that I spend my money on you but you really don’t need to worry about that because… well because I’m part of the British royal family.”

“What?”

“Shit.” Patri almost began to choke on her food but composed herself. “You’re going to need to explain this one a bit more.”

“So basically I was taken away to Barcelona as a child, I’ve grew up there since I was a baby but my father is Prince Charles.”

“Do we have to call you Princess Y/N now?” Irene teased, noticing your tense posture and bringing the conversation back down.

“Yeah Mapi you’re actually dating a real-life Princess.” Claudia added. “We’re all going to have to bow to you now.”

You couldn’t be more thankful to the way they just brushed over the news. You knew there would be more questions in the future but now maybe wasn’t the right place to ask them. “No bowing and no titles. You’re my family and as much as I might share a blood with those people they have nothing over you lot. Even though you’re all crazy and you drive me insane sometimes you’ve all given me a family that I could only dream of.”

“We all love you too.” Irene said. “Just as long as you keep our Mapi happy.”

“Always.”

“Did Mapi know?”

“I told her today, a lot’s happened since I got here and I just want to be honest with you all.”

“Wait!” Aitana almost shouted. “Does this mean you’re going to be supporting the enemy? We can’t have a traitor among us.”

“Don’t worry I’ll still be team Spain.”

“Good.”

Even if they didn’t win that match against Spain, falling short after an injury time winner, they still all did you proud. You made sure to remind Mapi of that as you shared a hug after the match, another barrier between you and fans all around you, yet it felt like you were the only two people in the World.

“You know England may have won today but you’ve got something they’ll never have.” You whispered in her ear.

“Oh yeah?”

“My heart.”

“I love you so much and no matter what happens with your family and everything, you’ll always have me. I couldn’t care less if you only had a euro to your name, you’re everything I want.”

“Mapi…”

“Maybe this could give you a new nickname as well, I think Princesa is quite fitting.”

“Stop…”

[langernameohnebedeutung]

TBH, I don't consider reducing/hiding scars a minor pet peeve at all. Activists for facial differences have been talking for years about 'disfigurement' being used as shorthand for moral failings. I could blame wanting to lighten the burden on makeup artists, but there's never any hesitation to make villains scarred. It's only if the character is meant to be sexy or heroic that their scars get toned down or removed.

DEFINITELY!

I think there are many aspects to this, the biggest one being the one you mentioned, this dynamic of villain = scarred, hero = not scarred.

And another thing that I hate about it is how especially in adaptions they take a facial difference and make it much smaller, less visible, move it etc. - and then try to pull off the same narrative about this character being perceived as not conventionally attractive. Which immediately becomes incredibly condescending and makes it even worse, especially when they choose a conventionally good-looking character to play that role.

An example:

He is supposed to look "monstrous" - like bro, what does that make the rest of us?

(And just to make the dehumanisation of people with facial differences more obvious: In the source material, this guy had half-lion features)

Another aspect I can think of is the fetishisation of self-hatred in this regard. It is portrayed as "good" when a character with a facial difference (especially a woman, in these tropes) puts herself down - but then in swoops a love-interest to tell how beautiful they are. Meanwhile, a character with a facial difference or something similiar who - for themselves - says: "Hey, actually I like the way I look" - is treated as arrogant and the butt-end of the joke. (There is this Colleen Hoover book I'm thinking of here, as one example, that in my defence I only watched a pretty scathing review of)

But I also think that there are some racial aspects and gender aspects to this. There are probably a lot of people more qualified to talk about these racial aspects of this and maybe I am imagining things or don't see the full scope of it but I definitely feel like they feel far more comfortable doing this "villains have scars" thing with characters of colour - at least relative to the amount of representation characters of colour get to begin with. And it feels like...well, again, I'm not the best person to put this into words but since it usually goes hand in hand with the villain-trope, it feels like an effort to dial up the othering, especially in older shows and movies that use stuff like rituals or something for shock value. To make other races or cultures look sCaRy and DifFeReNt.

Or - just the first example that comes to my mind: The original mirror-verse episode of Star Trek. The reason I'm mentioning this is because it is a piece of media where you can see side-by-side which visual cues writers settled on to make our characters look "evil": One is dialling up the sexy - especially with the women who are all much more horny - another is giving mirror!Sulu a big facial scar. And on the surface level, the reasoning even makes sense - that world is a lot more brutal so it makes sense that someone would have scars. But for one, there is the interesting choice to make Sulu the character to give it to. Not to mention: Our "normal"-verse characters also see fights and injuries. They could have scars very reasonably. Star Trek is all about inclusivity - but there is a notable absence of e.g. scarring of visible body differences in the original show - they even used body doubles and selective shots to hide James Doohan's missing finger. But the moment we go into an "evil" universe, there is facial difference and it is on the body of a man of colour.

And then you have the issue that female characters must not have visible scars in most cases - because they have to be eye-candy for the audience. And considering the huge pressure that is already placed on women to be beautiful, it feels like another body standard in the media ("we will show women suffering in all shapes all the time to the point of being exploitative, but also they heal back perfectly and don't appear changed at all. So the audience gets to eat their misogyny cake and eat it too.) Meanwhile, some male hero characters (usually action heroes, video game heroes) do get to have scars or some facial difference to show their "journey" and how much they hardened and what they survived - which I think can be a positive message - "hey, your scars talk about what you went through and what you survived and that you're a badass!" - but women get this to a much smaller degree despite having extra tons of pressure placed upon them to look beautiful so it feels really cool (also - referring back to my first point, self-empowerment is also treated as negative and almost egomanical because informing a woman that she is beautiful is a man's job)

(An example: I watched a a Netflix adaption of a book I had read recently and in the book, two major female characters have an identical scar on their face and that is pretty relevant to the story - and they just decide to place in the palms of her hands instead where it is much less visible and the scenario behind the first woman's injury becomes a lot less believable than the one in the novel)

And the thing is, I don't even always buy that it to save on make-up or effects in a lot of cases because often they are productions that have tons of budget for other things and a lot of movies and shows can show their characters for half the episode/movie with scrapes on their face and blood on their face etc. I have a hard time believing that this is so much harder to do than a scar.

[aajjks]

the ring!! it’s beautiful!! 🥹

mommy issues!JK

is this happening? is this really happening? you haven’t even been with jungkook for a YEAR and already..

“Yn will you make me the happiest man alive and marry me?”

you’ve only been with jungkook for almost 10 months and he’s already on his knees ready to commit the rest of his life to you. jungkook is sure that there’s no other woman on this planet that could ever love him like you do; there’s no other woman he loves but you. you’re in his dreams, on his mind, he sleeps and breathes you and it may sound crazy but he wants you all to himself for the rest of his life.

you come from a home where love was the bare minimum and your heart was treated like tissue but then you met jungkook. you remember being so stubborn about being with him but look at you now. soon you’ll be a mother of two beautiful kids but there’s also something else you forgot, a wife.

the gold ring is gorgeous and the moment jungkook got down on his knee, you were already in tears. like jungkook, you can’t see yourself spending the rest of your life with anyone else but him. your friend, your lover, and now your fiancé.

“i do! i do, i do, i do” you cry as you pull jungkook into a hug before kissing him all over his face and finally, his lips. “i love you so much, jungkook. so that’s why you didn’t want me to go through your dresser. i thought you were hiding snacks or something” you laugh before kissing jungkook’s cheek again.

“ok, put it on already!” you say as you hold out your hand and watch jungkook slide the ring on your finger with ease. it’s a perfect fit.

“i love it. aww, i love you. i can’t stop saying i love you but i really do. this just…” you sigh in admiration as you watch the diamond twinkle and sparkle under the light of the chandelier.

“seol is staying the night at eunwoo’s right because you just earned yourself a mind blowing blowjob tonight” you say as you size jungkook up with a sly smile on your face. yep, you’re definitely fucking him after this.

the food jungkook ordered for you is so delicious, you even take a few bites from his plate and get a little jealous since his dish is better than yours but to keep that smile on your face, he switches his plate with yours: happy wife, happy life right?

“jungkook, can i ask you something? since i’m pregnant with a girl, she’s gonna need a lot of space. y’know? a big closet for her clothes, her crib and seol’s birthday is coming up soon so he’s gonna need more space for all his toys and his clothes and..uh…i wanna move”

“we don’t have to move out of busan. i want us to live in a house. doesn’t have to be a biiiiig house just a place with enough room for you, seol, and moon”

moon? as in…the baby? yes. you’ve been pondering on girl names for your little bun and you’re slowly taking a liking to the name moon but what does jungkook think?

~🫧

“Moon?”

When you tell him it’s the name you have decided for your baby girl, Jungkook smiles big, absolutely happy with the name choice.

“Of course she’s gonna be beautiful just like the moon.” Jungkook focuses on his food, he’s been starving and couldn’t get himself to eat something because he was so nervous about the proposal, but as he is seeing the beautiful ring on your finger?

“You know I took your ring finger size in your sleep… it was such a hassle but it fits perfectly.” He winks

He feels like he’s complete. “Of course yn.. I was thinking about this as well now that our family is expanding… I have been looking over to some houses… I have saved a lot of money.. there is a separate account for you and for Seol in case something happens to me… I’ve started another one for our daughter… money is definitely not an issue because the job pays a lot… and maybe I’ll take you with me soon to look over some houses and you’ll select which one you like the best..” he coos.

You look so perfect, he cannot take his eyes off of you and whenever he looks at you? He just feels more hungry.

“Yn.. I never thought I would find love… I thought it was impossible.. but then I saw you…”

“To you maybe I’m moving too fast but I’ve been in love with you for the past three years… I fell in love with you at first sight.” He confesses, looking deeply into your eyes.

You’re his everything, you have completed him in ways he didn’t know it was possible.. “I hope that… you will always treat Seol like your own too-I know you do that but he’s really precious to me.” He asks, being honest.

•••

The night is still young but after dinner he takes you straight home, he’s so happy and horny, it’s been WEEKS since you have let him touch you, but tonight- you can’t escape.

The ride is full of sexual tension between you two, his hand constantly moving up and down between your thighs, sometimes it rests on your belly as he drives with one hand.

“Do you have any fucking idea how much sexier you’ve looked ever since I knocked you up?” His language is definitely different, he feels so energized right now, it’s going to be a long night for the both of you.

His have travels down from your stomach to your leg, teasing your skin. The truth is that he wants to fuck you fast and hard, but you’re pregnant so he will have to be slow and gentle.

“I can’t stop staring at your tits- and your ass. Goodness you look so fuckin perfect yn.” He exchanges a look with you, his eyes burning with desire.

“If you weren’t already pregnant I’d breed you so hard… fuck… you have no idea what you do to me..” he bites his lip, trying his best to focus on the road ahead.

“We’re almost home baby and tonight? You won’t be able to escape me.”

He’s feeling absolutely carnal. His body hot with lust.

[unofficialmuilover]

CHAPTER 10

For the past few weeks, you did nothing but to strive harder to gain your strength back. Throwing yourself in harsh training. Never stopping once to rest. Setting aside your exhaustion. As Shinazugawa said, this is the matter of life or death situation, no time to play around.

Being trained by pillars who are always on duty, it was agreed upon that the Flame, Love and Mist Pillars will take turns on training you before your Final Selection. Shinazugawa only agreed to train you if you were able to pass the Final Selection.

Today, You are in the Mist Pillar's Estate, currently sword sparring with a certain Mist Hashira. Your stamina has evidently improved for the past few days and able to keep up with Muichiro's move but something feels different, you started to have a gut feeling that he was holding back and you were getting frustrated by it.

"Don't hold back" you muttered sternly, Final Selection is near and it's making you aggravated, how would you be able to know your true strength if he keeps holding back. Today's training will be about defense. Mui will attack and you will counter defend all his attacks.

"You need to warmed up first" He objected your protest. Staring at you intently, noticing your frustration.

"No, attack me with your true strength" You snapped, you were being irrational right now, you know you couldn't beat him but the pressure you are feeling right now is too immense.

"Don't let your emotions control you Y/n" he narrowed his eyes at you, he knows that you have improved drastically but not enough to match a pillar's true strength yet here you are, letting your emotions got the best of you.

Still in your fighting stance, you let out a deep breath, "Please Muichiro-san, I need to do this, I need to know how far I still need to work for" You asked your friend desperately.

Muichiro stared at you in his usual emotionless stare, before nodding at you, "tell me when you're ready" he mumbled quietly, unsure of himself if he's going to let you taste of your own medicine but you were too stubborn.

Taking a deep breath, you grip your katana tighter, before nodding at the mist hashira, "I'm ready"

In an instant, he dashes straight forward, you could barely blink before he was in front of you making you gasp at the super human speed, it was like a lighting speed. You braced yourself to deflect the attack, you were only able to deflect the first one but didn't able to block the incoming ones making you fall on the ground with Mui falling on to you. He quickly pushes himself off to you, mumbling his apologies. You ignore the offering hand to help you stand up but you stayed there, feeling defeated, frustrated, disappointed at yourself. You have guess it right, you are far too weak.

"Y/n?" Muichiro tried to call your attention but you were too disappointed to talk to anyone right now. A hand gently tapped your shoulder before you glance at him. "I'm sorry Y/n" he murmured, he felt bad using his strength on you. He shouldn't have give in to your request. It was stupid request.

"I should be the one apologising Muichiro-san" You spoke sheepishly, your head hanging low as you couldn't face him, too embarrassed how you had wasted a pillar's time to a mere slayer like you.

"Don't be, you're being... Not you.. right now" he couldn't muster a word to describe you right now, but he knows you're not being you right now.

You didn't answer him, just sit there on the ground and stare blankly. "C'mon now Y/n let's go to shelter from the sun" when he didn't receive a response, he sighs before putting his hands on each of your upper arm to raise you up making you gasp "Mui" eyes widen in shock as he lift you up like you were a feather. He's definitely strong.

"Let's rest first before training again" he muttered before pulling your wrist towards under the shade.

The both of you sit in silence and it was unsual for Muichiro to see you not talking. He got used to your talkative persona, you always blabbering about something or anything. And you're being different right now.

"What's bothering you Y/n" He asked you softly, eyebrow furrowed, head tilting towards you, confused at your sudden silence.

"I thought I became stronger but you made me realize that I'm far too weak" you whispered bluntly, You could almost taste the bitterness of your words. You're not upset with him, it's not his fault that he was far stronger compared to you, a mere slayer.

"That's not true Y/n" Mui spoke, unsure how to comfort you right now, he couldn't muster the right word to ease up your frustration. Seeing your red face from irritation and teared up eyes has made him feel weird.

You shook your head frantically, closing your eyes to keep it all together, taking a shaky deep breath to stop yourself from breaking down.

Words from past events and earlier today made you doubt yourself.

You were on your way to the Mist Pillar's estate when you stopped over to buy some snacks at a food cart you saw when you were passing by.

"Two takoyaki order to go please" You asked nicely to the vendor. Nodding at your order "Two takoyaki, coming right up"

You waited as the vendor prepared for your order when you saw some of the demon slayer passing by, though without acknowledging them, you mind your own business.

"Hey isn't that Y/n over there?" At the mention of your name, you quickly look over to them, eyes meeting them, you offer a sweet smile but quickly falters when they roll their eyes, frowning at the sight of you before turning their backs.

You could hear them not so subtle talk about you.

"Huh, I thought Y/n has died after failing her last mission"

"No, I heard she got kick out in Demon Slayer Corp after realising she was too weak haha" The boy slayer laugh, you froze upon hearing them. Was that the real reason why you need to re take the final selection? Because you were too weak?

"Oh right! She was being train by the pillars, shameless!"

"Eh, poor pillars, their time getting wasted on some mere slayer who was too weak"

"I know right, she was only getting special treatment because she is favourite"

"Pfft bet she's working on her charms so she could flirt with the pillars haha"

You wanted to convince yourself that none of those words were true, but Shinazugawa's word echoes.

"Hashira's time should not be wasted on some mere slayer"

"This life or death situation"

"This is no time to play around with your little crush"

You facepalm, letting out a shaky breath to gather yourself but a sob betrayed you as soon as you heard Muichiro's genuine concerned voice asking you "Are you okay Y/n"

Shaking your head once again, your lips quivering as you try to hold the pain to yourself but a tear escapes through your eyes and not for too long, tears starts streaming down your face. Making the mist hashira panic at the sight of your tears. Frantically reaching out to you but you flinched, shot up to walk away as you were too embarrassed for making a scene but a hand grasped your wrist and pulled you back down.

The mist pillar, being not the best person for these situations, was dumbfounded, he didn't know what words to comfort you, to ease up your frustrations, to take away whatever is bothering you but he knows not to let you go on your own. He scoots closer to you and gently rubs your back, not sure of himself if this is the correct way to comfort you but he has seen people rub people's back when they are crying.

Seeing as you lean on to him, he pulled you closer, making you lay your head on his shoulder as he rubs your back soothingly "shhh it's okay Y/n" he murmured softly, your tears had gradually stopped, sniffles can be heard as the both of you sit in silence.

The training and crying made you exhausted, making you fall asleep on the mist pillar's shoulder.

Letting out a small sigh as he sees your puffy and red face sleeping figure. He didn't know what triggered you to act this way. He will definitely ask you this when you wake up and had calm down.

Slowly fluttering your eyes open, blinking a few times to clear your blurry vision, it was dark, making you sit up and look around frantically, it slowly dawned to you that you're in the Mist Pillar's Estate and remembered your foolishness earlier. 

"Kill me now" you grumbled as you facepalm as if to wipe your humiliation. You slowly got out of the bed and made your way to the bedroom door to apologize for making a fool of yourself. You should be training not sleeping. You scolded your inner self.

"Huh" It was awfully quiet, no signs of the mist pillar.

"Did he leave?" You mumbled, you went to look for the certain mint-green eyed hashira around the estate when you heard a rustling sound outside, quickly making your way over to the sound, you see him sitting by the porch, as you quietly approached him, you could make out that he was noddling at his crow before it flew away. Silence engulfed your surrounding, the sound of cicadas can only be heard. Muichiro look upon the star, you couldn't see his face but you bet his eyes were twinkling with the same amazement whenever you star gaze. He look so peaceful watching him from behind. You didn't want to interrupt his peace so you slowly back away.

"How was your sleep?" you paused upon hearing him, you look over to see he was still gazing up the sky. Without taking his eyes off from the sky, he patted the seat next to him to which you quietly walk over to, joining him with his star gazing. You have always been drawn to the stars, which was probably why you are a star user. 

"It was alright. I'm sorry for earlier" you muttered quietly. Muichiro took his eyes from the stars to glance at you, mint-green eyes filled with curiosity, "Do you want to tell me why are you upset?" he tilted his head as he wait for your answer, his eyes were looking intently at yours, waiting for you to open up but you were too ashamed to admit. 

How could you open up? It was not easy to say, 'Hey some slayers thinks that I'm too weak and wasting your time but I'm a favourite that's why I'm still being train by you' you would rather take it to your grave instead of telling him, you didn't want him to pity you or worst admit that it's true. It would totally crushed your heart. 

"It was nothing" you mumbled, hanging your head low to avoid eye contact with him, "Doesn't seem like it" he muttered, scooting closer to you. Your breath hitch when you felt his fingers reach for your chin, lifting them up to look at you, his usual blank stare was now filled with intense emotion, staring directly into your eyes as if he was looking through your soul. 

"Their words affected you" He stated the matter of fact. You froze at his statement.  "I..uh.. how did.. " you were loss for words, how did he know? 

"Ginko told me" he explained upon seeing your confused expression. Breaking your eye contact with him, you pretend to look up at the sky, pressing your cold hand to your cheeks as you feel it heat up.

"Why wouldn't you tell me?" Muichiro wondered, eyebrows furrowed as he curiously glanced at you.

Shaking your head slightly, letting out a defeated sigh, "It was humiliating" you answered so quietly, you hoped he wouldn't hear you.

"I don't understand" he mumbled, sighing as he looked upon the stars. "I don't understand why you're affected by those rascals, you didn't even know them. It was a waste of time bothering about it." he continued, you could hear in his voice that he was irritated.

You look in his direction, he was still gazing at the stars as if trying to find an answer by looking at them. You were silent for a while, questioning yourself, why are you affected by someone you didn't know?

"I don't know" you mumbled, "maybe it was the feeling that you know someone out there thinks so low of you and spreading hates about you and while you're unaware that you were getting hate and only finding out later on but you couldn't do anything to confront them or defend yourself" you starts rambling, not sure if you were making sense.

"I could torture them if you want" Muichiro suggested in his serious monotonous voice with a hint of mischievous in his eyes. His words made your eyes bulge out and slap his arm "No! You're not torturing anyone" you scolded him. "It's only going to make it worse."

"Mmm.. it won't" he shrugged his shoulder.

"It's against the Corps" you protest, not wanting him to do some drastic actions. People will hate you if he did that.

"I could get away with it" he said simply, Looking at you intently, eyes challenging you how would you convince him not to torture them "I thought you wanted to do something to defend your side"

"I thought you said it was a waste of time bothering them" You said, throwing his words back at him. Smiling triumphant as you knew you got him.

Sighing defeatedly, "Fine, I won't waste my time on some nincompoop" he muttered, rolling his eyes. "You better not let me catch you crying over those little shits" he added, narrowing his eyes at you.

You quickly nodded, "Thank you Mui" you mumbled, fumbling your hands. Keeping yourself busy, not wanting to discuss the matter any longer.

"Keep in mind that we're not wasting our time training you, we see a great potential in you. You shouldn't listen to other people's thoughts about you. You know yourself, you always should believe in yourself."

His words echoed to your mind.

So you did, believing in yourself even if there are times it was impossible.

One day, the pillars took you somewhere to show you something. You were walking to unfamiliar path up in the mountain. Rengoku was carrying a basket full of snacks and a blanket while Mitsuri brought another basket full of her favourite foods, specially sakura mochi, Muichiro however, just brought himself.

"Where are we going" you ask with excited twinkling in your eyes, this was the nth time you asked and they wouldn't give you the answer. Making your curiosity grow the further you walk, making you more excited. You love surprises.

"Tadaaa" Mitsuri let out a squeal pointing both of her hand to a.... big rock..

Your excitement quickly vanishes as you eyed the boulder with confusion, eyebrows furrowed, glancing at them, "what are we supposed to be looking at?"

"This is your final test" Rengoku answered, smiling brightly at you before glancing back at the big rock. "You're going to cut the boulder Y/n" Mitsuri added, eyes twinkling with excitement.

"What?! That's impossible!" You shriek. You would've flat out laughed if it weren't for their encouraging serious face that stare right back at you.

"Nothing is impossible" Rengoku exclaimed! Ruffling your hair as he laughs.

Mitsuri was already seated on a spread out blanket and already munching on the mochi, giving you an encouraging thumbs up, while muichiro was seated besides her, his mint-green eyes stared at the clouds with curiosity.

Rengoku gently pushes you towards the boulder indicating for you to slice it.

You unsheathed your katana, gripping it in your hand as your stare at the big rock in front of you. 'I can do this. I can do this' you mutter to yourself as you focus all your strength on both of your biceps and arms.

"Star Breathing: 1st Form Dust of Hope"

Setting your swords with blue flame, you jumped off your position, striking after the rock.

Tagging @mistymxxn for her continuous support. Love you 🩵💙🩵💙🩵

[rubylarkspur22]

Thank you for answering my previous ask.

I have read your take on main antagonist!Nezuko, and that gave me an idea. What about an AU where Nezuko is the main protagonist instead? Not role swap (or at least Nezuko remains a demon).

How do you think that would effect the plot of KNY and what do you think would Nezuko´s character arc be about?

No problem!

Funnily enough, I have an idea for something similar to what you're asking about. It's more a "Nezuko and Tanjirou Are More Co-Protags" or "Nezuko Got Her Memories and Personality Back (And Maybe Conquered the Sun) Immediately After Her Coma" AU. Basically what it says on the tin, Nezuko's pretty much back to her human self after her little coma(minus the whole demon thing), and is a lot more active as a character.

Everything past the cut is quite long, so be prepared for that!

So, Nezuko being the main main protagonist? Let me brainstorm some ideas. Starting with setup:

Nezuko still becomes a demon, as you said. However, we need to pull some strings to pull Tanjirou away from center stage. Let's say he got injured sometime between the start of Episode 1 and meeting Urokodaki(so either by Muzan or the Temple Demon). Badly enough he can't use a sword(best bet is either a respiratory injury, or some sort of paralysis. Limb loss just makes him a less edgy version of his beta self.), and his new inability to use a weapon/Breathing Style or fight altogether is noted by Giyuu and/or Urokodaki. Therefore, he's barred from training, but he still wants Nezuko to become human again.

After realizing Tanjirou is in no condition to fight demons, but still wants to cure her, Nezuko takes matters into her own hands. Starting with a coma. However, it's shorter than canon(let's go with 6 months to a year) because she pushes herself to her absolute limit to pretty much speedrun her season 1-3 development(making herself resistant to her demonic instincts and sun-proofing herself are her main priorities). When she wakes up, she gives everyone a heart attack by walking outside.

After everyone calms down when Nezuko doesn't burn, she asks to be trained. Urokodaki is hesitant, but can tell Nezuko has a very strong resolve. She wants to help her brother attain his goal of turning her back into a human, and also seeks revenge on Kibutsuji. So he agrees to train her. It's difficult to train a demon in a Breath Style, but Nezuko's will and determination makes it easier for her to perfect her moves.

Tanjirou helps where he can, maybe even remembering the Hinokami Kagura sooner and teaching it to Nezuko when he does. But he's also a worried big brother, despite Nezuko's assurances that she'll be okay. He definitely tried to take up a sword at some point, but ended up getting a hefty scolding from both Urokodaki and Nezuko when they found him.

Starting from there, what effects would there be on the story?

Demons are hella confused. Who is this girl? Why does she give off the presence of a demon, yet wield one of their blades? And if she is a demon, which some doubt she is, how dare she turn on her own kind and help those who would sooner kill her than work in tandem with her? (this is especially fun on Mount Fujikasane, during Final Selection ÒwÓ)

Muzan takes an earlier interest in Nezuko when they run into each other in Asakusa, perhaps even sending one of the Twelve Kizuki after her. Luckily, he still doesn't realize she's conquered the sun until the Swordsmith's Village, so she's just considered a rogue demon until then.

Zenitsu is far less forward with his affections, and is force fed respect women juice. His and Nezuko's relationship is a lot more mutual and starts with friendship. Inosuke tries to behead Nezuko in the Tsuzumi Mansion, but they sort it out eventually and Nezuko becomes Inosuke's favourite minion/sparring partner.

The mental breakdowns that will occur during the Hashira Meeting. A good demon? And she can walk in the sun?! Perhaps the sky is falling down, someone check!!!

Nezuko not only fighting the demons, but desperately trying to avoid capture by them. If they get her back to Muzan, it's all over.

She's also a fair bit more powerful, as I imagine her cells would start photosynthesizing after she conquers the sun. So Nezuko can gain plenty of energy from sunlight, enough to use her full demon form and Blood Demon Art for extended periods of time without a lack of usable energy making her hunger a problem. Where she could beat up Daki easily, and had a struggle against Hantengu's emotion clones in canon, I'd say she's on Douma's level (maybe Kokushibou's if she really pushes it) at her peak in this AU.

Rengoku probably won't die. Assuming Akaza gets sent to the Mugen Train. If he doesn't, that may be a different story.

While Tanjirou doesn't fight, he still keeps running into demons. Or rather, demons keep coming to him. Poor guy can't catch a break. Muzan found out about Tanjirou somehow, and thought he could either turn Tanjirou and get the same results he wanted with Nezuko, or that he could use Tanjirou as part of a trap and kill the eldest living Kamado once Muzan had Nezuko. At first, Urokodaki is protecting Tanjirou from any demons that show up. Then Urokodaki sends word to Giyuu at some point that they need to transport Tanjirou to a more secure location because demons keep knocking down his damn door looking for the poor kid and Urokodaki's too old for this BS!

As a result, Tanjirou is brought either to headquarters or the Butterfly Mansion, as both locations are top secret and surrounded by anti-demon security measures.

Nezuko might be influenced by Genya to start eating demons. She sees him chomp a tree, and decides she might as well do the same because why tf not? Demons are surprisingly nutritious. She only has a minor crisis while wondering if the humans the demons have already count for her human consumption count.

Eventually, the Infinity Castle Arc happens. Nezuko ends up against Kokushibou with Sanemi, Gyomei, and Muichirou. Genya gets sent to battle Akaza with Giyuu and Rengoku. Both battles would be hard, but they'd ultimately emerge victorious, with a couple close calls on both ends. Not sure if Mui survives, but Genya sure does!

Most of the final battle is Muzan trying to capture and absorb Nezuko, and Nezuko is using his flesh as kindling. The majority of the human Demon Slayers' injuries are far less severe thanks to Nezuko's BDA burning out Muzan's poison. And at some point, she gets the antidote, which ups the ante. She needs to finish Muzan before she turns back into a human and loses her demonic strength, but she can't get too close lest she be absorbed and all her hard work be for nothing.

As the sun rises, Nezuko become a human again just when Muzan goes to devour her. Her final attack costs her an arm, but she survives and wakes up after the battle to her teary-eyed big brother and the friends she made on her journey surrounding her.

Nezuko's arc would mostly be learning not to rely solely on the strength and power she received as a demon, as it will only last so long and will go away once she's human again. While she has no intention of taking the antidote until the final battle, it's still something she needs to remember.

She also learns to lean on others for help in this quest to restore her humanity. Whether it's asking others to help her get blood, or stepping back while others take the fight, she doesn't have to do everything on her own. Even if she's a demon, and can handle a lot more than any human, she can still let the humans handle it.

And lastly, dealing with the guilt and self-hatred she's bound to experience. Her mother and younger siblings were killed, and Tanjirou got injured, all while she couldn't do anything. As a result, in wanting to do more to protect her last living sibling and the new family she's built with the Kamaboko Squad, Nezuko overworks herself to a point that would kill her if she was human. Someone(probably Kanao, Shinobu, Mitsuri, or Muichirou) eventually has a talk with her about what she's doing, and helps her work through her trauma.

Those are all the ideas that I managed to spitball off the top of my noggin, and I am open to more.

[snappedsky]

Fanatics 99.9

Pepito ends round 3 with a blast, but not the way he wanted.

*Links to previous and next chapters in reblog*

--

Greatest in the Galaxy Part 9

“With Pepito’s amazing win, he has gained five points for his team, putting Earth at 18 points! Rory having placed second has earned three, keeping Irk at second with 13!”

The audience cheers excitedly as Pepito limps up to his team’s sky box. They’re all at the door to greet him and make sure he’s okay.

“That was amazing!” Dib exclaims.

“Kind of show-off-y,” Gaz comments.

“I appreciate the showmanship,” Zim remarks.

“You have solidified our place in first,” Tak says.

“Are you alright?” Squee asks.

“I’ll be fine,” Pepito replies as he sits at the table, wincing slightly. “That blast just took everything I had. Some rest and I’ll be good as new.”

“Let’s move onto the fight! Who will be the players for this round?”

Everyone watches the wheels as they select the next players.

“It shall be...Zinather of Irk, Olap of Swif’el, Piton of Techon-03, Flexor of Mus’ular and Pepito of Earth!”

The Battalion gasp with despair and look at Pepito.

“Well, shit,” he grunts and stands up.

“You’re not well enough to fight,” Shmoopy points out.

“Definitely not at my best, no,” he agrees as he stretches and winces. “Too bad we can’t order some MacMeaties takeout. But I still got this. I can still use my wings and my spear.”

“Zinather won’t go down easy,” Dib points out.

“Neither will I,” Pepito retorts, “and I won’t let that little snot get away with what he did to you.”

“Be careful,” Squee begs.

Pepito smiles warmly as he grabs his spear and heads for the balcony. “Don’t any of you hop in either if the fight starts going bad. It’s not over ‘til it’s over.”

Just like in the last game, he dives off the balcony and uses his wings to carry him to the middle of the arena, where the other players are already waiting.

“Now that everyone is here, begin!”

Olap, Piton, and Flexor, immediately back away to the sidelines while Pepito and Zinather stare each other down.

“You know, I noticed something in your fight with Dib,” Pepito muses, “you didn’t move from that spot once. I’m gonna do something about that.”

Zinather snorts. “You’re putting on a big show, but I can tell just by looking at you- you’re barely able to stand right now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’ll admit, giving that blast everything I had probably wasn’t the best idea, but...I don’t do anything small.”

Pepito flaps his wings and charges at Zinather at high speed, swinging his spear. Two of Zinather’s spider legs extend to block, but Pepito suddenly stops and goes around to strike at his back. Zinather’s other two spider legs block him just in time, knocking back his spear. The other two appendages stab back at him, but Pepito leaps backwards to dodge.

Once safely out of range, Pepito flies back around to Zinather’s front and charges again. Zinather’s spider legs lunge to meet him and the two clash, their blades clanging against each other as they strike and block.

One of Zinather’s spider legs thrust at Pepito’s stomach when his blade is parried. But before it can hit him, there’s a flash of red and Pepito leaps back.

Zinather freezes and glances at his suddenly damaged spider leg. He looks back at Pepito who is standing on the other side of the stadium, his newly-summoned tail holding the severed appendage. Pepito smirks before taking flight.

In the sky, he whips his tail, throwing the spider leg at Zinather. His working appendages move to knock it out of the way, but the severed piece suddenly starts glowing black and flies around the Irken.

Zinather glares up at Pepito, who points his fingers to direct the flight of the spider leg.

Zinather starts to retract his spider legs, when the severed piece shoots at him again, and he’s forced to block. It flies around him to his other side and Zinather’s spider legs swiftly follow to parry it. It pulls back and flies around to his rear, and Zinather’s spider legs barely keep up to block.

Pepito hovers overhead, directing all of the movements. He moves the spider leg fast and unrelenting, giving Zinather barely any time to react.

It charges his front and Zinather’s spider legs move to block, when it suddenly charges course and flies in from the right. His spider legs are seconds too slow to stop it and the severed appendage closes in on his face. Zinather bends his head backwards, barely dodging it.

The appendage comes back from the left. Zinather’s spider legs move to block, when Pepito suddenly comes up on his right. As the two attacks close in, Zinather’s spider legs struggle to keep up.

Zinather leaps backwards, dodging the severed spider leg and Pepito’s spear.

“Made ya move,” Pepito grins cheekily.

Zinather glares daggers at him. He retracts his spider legs and they’re quickly replaced with metallic tentacles, each with a different weapon on the end: a spinning saw blade, a sharp clamp, a laser shooter, and a mass of smaller tendrils.

“You know, the problem with you fighting twice in a row is everyone has already seen all of your attacks,” Pepito points out.

“It’s not a problem if I can’t be beat,” Zinather retorts.

The tendrils lunge at Pepito. He directs his spider leg to charge and follows beside it.

The spider leg is swiftly caught in the clamp and crushed. The multi-tendril tries to grab Pepito, but he catches it instead and rips it in half. Before he can have a chance to take control of it though, the laser quickly destroy it.

The saw, the clamp, and the laser bear down on Pepito. He creates a force field that blocks the laser fire, but the saw and clamp come around at him. He swings his spear and manages to sever the saw, but the clamp catches his left shoulder and chomps down. Pepito cries out in pain, grabs the tendril, and bites through it, severing it. The clamp falls lifeless to the ground and drops of darkened red blood fall next to it as Pepito’s left arm hangs limply.

“I have to end this now,” Pepito snarls. He plants his working hand against the force field blocking the laser fire and explodes it outwards, destroying the laser tendril and knocking back Zinather a few inches. When he recovers, he sees Pepito pointing his spear, black energy swirling around his body.

Zinather quickly retracts his severed tendrils and a large plasma cannon extends out of his PAK and takes aim.

“Rory’s was bigger,” Pepito comments as his energy converges on the tip of his spear.

Both weapons fire beams of different coloured energy- one pink, one black. They clash in the middle, causing an explosion that covers the whole arena and blinds the audience.

When the light fades and the dust settles, Olap, Piton, and Flexor are all lying on the ground, unconscious. Pepito and Zinather remain standing, glaring at each other.

“Ah, shit,” Pepito grunts before collapsing to his knees and falling onto the ground. Zinather glares down at him as he retracts his cannon.

“What a fight, folks! Zinather has taken the win, earning Irk a total of 18 points, tying them in first with Earth! But I don’t think Earth will want to give it up so easily!”

The Battalion quickly rush out into the arena and to Pepito. Squee and Gaz roll him over and Shmoopy gives him a quick look over.

“The wound on his arm can be easily fixed,” she explains, “but he is completely drained.”

“He needs some greasy food, stat,” Squee demands.

“Let’s get him back to the house,” Kio orders and gets him on a stretcher.

As the team leave the stadium, Squee stops when he notices Zinather once again with the Tallest, just like yesterday. The trio look at him and the Tallest wave cheekily.

Squee growls, a murderous feeling growing in his chest.

[kyofsonder]

Find the Word 1

I’ve been tagged by several people over the last… 3.5 weeks to find select sets of words in my WIPs, and this time I’m not combining them into a single post. That would be endless to scroll through. So I’ll start with a tag from @inkspellangel and find those words first. Thank you for the tag, for your patience while I was away from Tumblr, and for the chance to play this game!

My Words: hate, understand, bridge, against, people

I’ll Tag: @on-noon, @saltysupercomputer, @calicojackofficial, @midnight-and-his-melodiverse, @junypr-camus, and as always anyone else who wants to join in can use these words (or words from my other upcoming FtW posts) and say I tagged them!

Your Words: pretend, accept, offer, aware, hollow

I have a lot of backlog to get through, but I’ll still put the excerpts themselves under a cut as always. 

I found hate in my Danny Phantom fanfic “Lingering Scars”: 

"As much as I hate to say that you're ever right about anything..." he fakes a shudder, overplaying the movement just enough to earn him a classic Jazz Fenton eye roll, "I definitely would've kept quiet if you'd let me, you're not actually wrong there. I'm the type of guy who's bad at... not doing that. I don't know if it's good or bad that you made me talk, but now that we're digging into the really secret stuff... I have to do this right. There's a place where I can do that, but it's not here. If you can trust me long enough to go there, I'll tell you both what happened to my neck and some other stuff I tried to cover up. I'll show you why I won't disappear on you, or leave either of you alone." 

I found understand in my novel WIP “Apricots”:

Ian takes another long, deep breath. He's not angry now. He's not even annoyed, not really. He's... is there a word somewhere between determination to help someone you care about and resignation to sign yourself up for something you don't fully understand? His emotions are somewhere in that area, trying to settle into something more defined. Not unclear, but... imprecise. It's probably the best he can manage. 

I found bridge in the rough draft of my Given fanfic “Present Tense”:

The height of their hands shifts as they lean to look into his eyes. Disrupting the flow of time he's been watching. His vision is filled with silver instead. A kind of silver that should have its own separate word, as a color all its own. There are places where the silver itself seems slightly worn, seems grey or almost black. This is the bridge that goes there, to the place in their hands that holds time itself. This is how they pull everything into their grasp. Through this silver that isn't just silver. Through these eyes that aren't usually eyes. Looking at the world in a way Mafuyu would never think to try for himself. Still unable to speak, he nods thoughtfully.

I found against in my short story “Hidden Talent”:

After all, rather than emptiness within Vance himself, it's more like an awareness of all the empty spaces around him. He doesn't need to fill himself with something that's missing. He needs to do something about that awareness itself. Noticing the empty places in a room or a building or even a park, the areas that look blank or vacant. It's those blank spaces that are hungry for something to give them color or presence. They're fading away. They need something to anchor them, to bring them back, and he becomes so hyper-conscious of that need that it makes him hyper-conscious of his own presence, too. His head so full of thoughts, his chest so full of emotions, he ends up feeling like some kind of moving painting himself. Standing out against these spaces that have nothing. It gets under his skin every time, to the point he starts to feel sick with the infuriating need to balance the vibrant and the vacant. The bright and the blank. Give a little paint from the place that has too much and deposit it in places that don't have enough. Wash the excess layers of it off himself and reset. Recolor. Rebalance.

I found people in my Given fanfic “Present Tense”:

A Gibson Hollow-Body, Uenoyama-kun had said. It's been awhile now since he first heard the term, but it still rattles around in Mafuyu's head sometimes. As if his head, too, is hollow and he's desperate to fill it with words -- with the ideas and voices of other people. Maybe that's the right way to learn an instrument, or to have friends, or to be a lover. Maybe it's just a way to distract himself. Maybe it's a way of collecting things that someone else has said, until he can say something on his own. The way he does when he sings. The way he gathered so many of Ugetsu-san's words and his band mates' feelings to make his last song. He's not sure what he's actually trying to do, one way or the other; but he can feel the downward slope of this particular word as it settles into a more or less set position in these early morning thoughts. Hollow.

It took me a long time to get to this one, but I did find every single word on the list – the words against and people showing up so often they stopped looking like real words – and I had fun figuring out how to keep my excerpts short while also sharing what I want to share. Thank you again for the tag!

[gracefulweather]

TO MY DEAREST SHERRIE! ❤️💙💜

Happy 1-year message-versary! Can’t believe it’s been exactly 1 year since you first messaged me on Tumblr! While it may have started because of my love for your fics, which then led to lots of nekked pics of Hyunjae in our chat 🤡, I’m glad that our convos have evolved to talking about your blossoming feelings for SEVENTEEN ❣️, our hilarious boi stories, work complaints 🙃, and trip planning! I never thought that I’d be besties with someone I met online but I knew we were totally vibing from the start! 🥰

Thank you for being the perfect partner-in-crime by being delusional with me, helping me plan my perfect holiday to your home country, and encouraging me to tap into my wild (?) side by getting piercings! I’ve loved all our random convos and all the funny things you send me and say, and it’s always the best when we suddenly go off on a tangent and become totally delusional and write spontaneous drabbles / fics in our chats! Or when we tell each other about random things that act as fic inspo! I’ve told you this before but I’m so honoured that you’ve dedicated fics to me! 💞💓💗

Special mention to you having managed to put up with my awful work complaints, especially during That Project ™️ (RIP may it never come back to me again! 🙏🏻) and for always keeping me company when I was working late or was bored on the way to / from work or even at work! 💖💘💝

You’re my bestie from the other side of the world but even 13 timezones can’t keep us apart! 😂😂😂 Literally the only times we didn't message each other were when we were sick or I was physically with you during my holiday HAHA and I have now become an expert at our timezone difference lol

Once again, happy message-versary and here’s to many more fun times! 🥂

P.S. Come visit me soon! 😭😭😭

P.P.S. A select summary of some iconic moments in pics:

HAPPY FRIENDVERSARYYYY to the seokmin to my mingyu, the hyunjae to my younghoon ✨🥳🎉🎊 ahhh so much has changed in the past year and i can fully say that i never expected to make a new friend in 2022 but it happened and we had way too much fun together!!!

(i debated making a post on jeongjaebae about this and even had the screenshots collected, but i guess i'll post them here instead LOL)

here's how it started

how it continued.... aaaand of course my legendary slip-into-the-dms move 🤡

guess they don't call me an istj attractor for nothing HAHA

yeah so i never expected for something like this to happen especially when 1. no one comments on fics, and 2. no one sends asks, and 3. if they pass thru #1 and 2, they're probably... way too young to pull off an international trip to meet a mutual LMAO. so really, the stars aligned for this to happen :'')

i knew we'd be able to meet one day but never expected the opportunity to come up so soon!! having you (kind of spontaneously) visit from 15,558 km away is definitely a once in a lifetime event and a big part of what made 2022 so special 🤩 and ofc it's been quite the experience watching you go from a Good Girl to wanting to try new things!! like piercings and crop tops and maybe doing a slutty walk through the financial district HAHAH

the days when we used to talk for like 9 hours in a row (when i was unemployed) were way too much fun, but even now with jobs and timezones and everything, we still manage to be delusional so we're doing great :') and yeah i totally agree, it's nice to have a friend from a diff timezone so we can have each other for company even during odd hours like those 7:30s on the train or the 2ams.

also it's so interesting to see which conversations you screenshotted?? some of them overlap with mine like the stupid together stupid separately, and the one with the brackets LMAO. but here are some i found funny:

can't possibly include all the good moments and idek if these would count as my faves either but think they're pretty fitting of our highly delulu convos 😍

so here's to one great year of friendship and adventures, and looking forward to more to come!! (aka continuing to be as delusional as humanly possible) ❣️✨💓💫💖

p.s. yes that aussieland trip has to happen sometime 🥺

[turnpage]

send me a ✐ for a random sentence starter from my muse (1-1500) — tw: profanity, mild nsfw, long list

generator here quotes compiled from here inspired by

feel free to change to fit your preferences as need.

❨1❩ ❛ They are dreams, but I’m too out of control, I lose myself in them, and I’ve already lost too much to let them take over. ❜
 ❨2❩ ❛ Sometimes human places create inhuman monsters. ❜ ❨3❩ ❛ I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in. ❜ ❨4❩ ❛ Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win. ❜ ❨5❩ ❛ The world's a hard place. It doesn't care. It doesn't hate you and me, but it doesn't love us, either. ❜ ❨6❩ ❛ The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge. ❜ ❨7❩ ❛ Pull your act together and just go on. ❜ ❨8❩ ❛ I had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there is nothing physically wrong. I hurt all the time. ❜ ❨9❩ ❛ Tough old world, baby. If you're not bolted together tightly, you're gonna shake, rattle, and roll before you turn thirty. ❜ ❨10❩ ❛ Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford? ❜ ❨11❩ ❛ Truth comes out. In the end it always comes out. ❜ ❨12❩ ❛ Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. ❜ ❨13❩ ❛ No matter where you go, the same asshole gets off the plane. ❜ ❨14❩ ❛ We sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives. ❜ ❨15❩ ❛ That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. ❜ ❨16❩ ❛ Human nature, baby. Grab it and growl. ❜ ❨17❩ ❛ God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you. ❜ ❨18❩ ❛ Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you. ❜ ❨19❩ ❛ How many times, over how many years, have I—a grown adult—asked for the mercy of another chance? ❜ ❨20❩ ❛ I was suddenly so sick of myself, so revolted. ❜ ❨21❩ ❛ You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. ❜ ❨22❩ ❛ But those pieces, they’ll never fit just the same way again. Never in this world. ❜ ❨23❩ ❛ Dying is a part of living. You have to keep tuning in to that if you expect to be a whole person. ❜ ❨24❩ ❛ Officious little prick. ❜ ❨25❩ ❛ I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear. — The plants are moving under the rug. ❜ ❨26❩ ❛ How I wish you were fear. ❜ ❨27❩ ❛ But it was a dreadful kind of curiosity, the kind that makes you peek through your fingers during the scariest parts of a scary movie. ❜ ❨28❩ ❛ All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party. ❜ ❨29❩ ❛ We all remember our pleasant dreams more clearly than the scary ones. ❜ ❨30❩ ❛ The way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. ❜ ❨31❩ ❛ Got to be regular if you want to be happy. ❜ ❨32❩ ❛ But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. ❜ ❨33❩ ❛ He showed me his scars, and in return he let me pretend that I had none. ❜ ❨34❩ ❛ Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep. ❜ ❨35❩ ❛ It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment's carelessness.  ❜ ❨36❩ ❛ If I had ever believed it, I no longer do. ❜ ❨37❩ ❛ I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands. ❜ ❨38❩ ❛ I cannot bear this world a moment longer. ❜ ❨39❩ ❛ I have a better idea. I will do as I please. ❜ ❨40❩ ❛ All my life has been murk and depths, but I am not a part of that dark water. I am a creature within it. ❜ ❨41❩ ❛ You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. ❜ ❨42❩ ❛ When we are young, we think ourselves the first to have each feeling in the world. ❜ ❨43❩ ❛ When I was born, the word for what I was did not exist. ❜ ❨44❩ ❛ But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ❜ ❨45❩ ❛ I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. ❜ ❨46❩ ❛ This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive. ❜ ❨47❩ ❛ You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you. ❜ ❨48❩ ❛ Yet because I knew nothing, nothing was beneath me. ❜ ❨49❩ ❛ If now I am wise, it is only because I have been fool enough for a hundred lifetimes. ❜ ❨50❩ ❛ You can teach a viper to eat from your hands, but you cannot take away how much it likes to bite. ❜ ❨51❩ ❛ Give me the blade. Some things are worth spilling blood for. ❜ ❨52❩ ❛ I have been old and stern for so long, carved with regrets and years like a monolith. But that is only a shape I’ve been poured into. I do not have to keep it. ❜ ❨53❩ ❛ I wake sometimes in the dark terrified by my life's precariousness, its thready breath. ❜ ❨54❩ ❛ Understanding the world is a matter of keeping very still and showing no emotions, leaving room for others to reveal themselves. ❜ ❨55❩ ❛ Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. ❜ ❨56❩ ❛ The truth is, men make terrible pigs. ❜ ❨57❩ ❛ My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. ❜ ❨58❩ ❛ This is the grief that makes our kind choose to be stones and trees rather than flesh. ❜ ❨59❩ ❛ Witches are not so delicate. ❜ ❨60❩ ❛ Those who fight against prophecy only draw it more tightly around their throats. ❜ ❨61❩ ❛ I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. ❜ ❨62❩ ❛ There's the story, then there's the real story, then there's the story of how the story came to be told. Then there's what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too. ❜ ❨63❩ ❛ The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them. ❜ ❨64❩ ❛ Life is warped. I'm just in sync. ❜ ❨65❩ ❛ Now it's a whisper from the past. ❜ ❨66❩ ❛ But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more. ❜ ❨67❩ ❛ Why is it always such a surprise? The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush. ❜ ❨68❩ ❛ Perfection exacts a price, but it's the imperfect who pay it. ❜ ❨69❩ ❛ What is 'belief' but a willingness to suspend the negatives?  ❜ ❨70❩ ❛ I have scars, inside me. ❜ ❨71❩ ❛ The dead are not entirely dead but are alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. ❜ ❨72❩ ❛ However dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void. ❜ ❨73❩ ❛ Amazing how quickly the past becomes idyllic. ❜ ❨74❩ ❛ It is another way of saying tough luck. To people you aren’t going to help out. ❜ ❨75❩ ❛ I'm waiting, far off in the future. ❜ ❨76❩ ❛ The only sure camouflage is unpredictability. ❜ ❨77❩ ❛ There are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. ❜ ❨78❩ ❛ First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled. ❜ ❨79❩ ❛ I long to swim in liquid moonlight. ❜ ❨80❩ ❛ That's right, I don’t like to be summoned on trivial matters. ❜ ❨81❩ ❛ The part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. ❜ ❨82❩ ❛ Cut that part out of us: the grinning, elemental malice. Begin us anew. ❜ ❨83❩ ❛ Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot. ❜ ❨84❩ ❛ At last. It's you. ❜ ❨85❩ ❛ No, you will not be cooked on a fire when you die. Because you are not a fish. ❜ ❨86❩ ❛ Take what the moment offers. Don’t close doors. Be thankful. ❜ ❨87❩ ❛ How many others have stood in this place? Left behind, with all gone, all swept away. ❜ ❨88❩ ❛ Is it disapproval or extreme lust? With some men it’s hard to tell the difference. ❜ ❨89❩ ❛ My hair was driving me crazy, but then … I died. ❜ ❨90❩ ❛ Seek and ye shall find, eventually. And you found. You’re right, I don’t dispute that. Sorry. ❜ ❨91❩ ❛ Everything digests, and is digested. ❜ ❨92❩ ❛ My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft. ❜ ❨93❩ ❛ You cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. ❜ ❨94❩ ❛ I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s something nobody knows about. ❜ ❨95❩ ❛ And if I don’t want to die, I’ve got to start living. ❜ ❨96❩ ❛ The world is a beautiful place. Don’t forget that. And don’t miss it. ❜ ❨97❩ ❛ I was fighting for my life. So I must not want to die. ❜ ❨98❩ ❛ Something’s happening to me, through me, something dangerous and new. ❜ ❨99❩ ❛ It’s taken root, a poison tree; it’s grown, fanning out, vines winding round my gut, my lungs, my heart. ❜ ❨100❩ ❛ We’re interpreters. We’re translators. ❜ ❨101❩ ❛ You’ll notice I’m not asking what made you this way. ❜ ❨102❩ ❛ No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other. Tolstoy was chock-fullo’shit. Remember that. ❜ ❨103❩ ❛ We lived in monochrome those nights. ❜ ❨104❩ ❛ You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? ❜ ❨105❩ ❛ Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? ❜ ❨106❩ ❛ I stand here in the dark: cold, utterly alone, full of fear and something that feels like longing. ❜ ❨107❩ ❛ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. ❜ ❨108❩ ❛ Not to warm the flesh, but solely to please the eye. ❜ ❨109❩ ❛ Selective emotional detachment. ❜ ❨110❩ ❛ Not for me, or at least not today. ❜ ❨111❩ ❛ Dead but not gone, watching life surge forward around me, powerless to intervene. ❜ ❨112❩ ❛ Do I sound like a hillbilly saying that? ❜ ❨113❩ ❛ Remember, you’ve got your secret weapon. ❜ ❨114❩ ❛ The dream drains away like water. The memory, really. I try to scoop it up in my palms, but it’s gone. ❜ ❨115❩ ❛ My shadow stretches along the carpet, as though trying to detach itself from me. ❜ ❨116❩ ❛ It curls away from me, like blood in water. ❜ ❨117❩ ❛ It’s been so long since I felt the rain. Or wind—the caress of wind. ❜ ❨118❩ ❛ But snow I never want to feel again. ❜ ❨119❩ ❛ Through adversity to the stars. ❜ ❨120❩ ❛ No hero. No sleuth. I am locked in. I am locked out. ❜ ❨121❩ ❛ Thinking hasn't gotten me anywhere so far. ❜ ❨122❩ ❛ The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you. ❜ ❨123❩ ❛ Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. ❜ ❨124❩ ❛ Women get consumed. ❜ ❨125❩ ❛ Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them. ❜ ❨126❩ ❛ A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. ❜ ❨127❩ ❛ Safer to be feared than loved. ❜ ❨128❩ ❛ I ached once, hard, like a period typed at the end of a sentence. ❜ ❨129❩ ❛ It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying. ❜ ❨130❩ ❛ I always feel sad for the girl that I was. ❜ ❨131❩ ❛ Every time people said I was pretty, I thought of everything ugly swarming beneath my clothes. ❜ ❨132❩ ❛ How do you keep safe when your whole day is as wide and empty as the sky? Anything could happen. ❜ ❨133❩ ❛ See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was. ❜ ❨134❩ ❛ Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. ❜ ❨135❩ ❛ To refuse has so many more consequences than submitting. ❜ ❨136❩ ❛ I'm here. I don't usually feel that I am. ❜ ❨137❩ ❛ I'm tired of dying. ❜ ❨138❩ ❛ What if you hurt because it feels so good? ❜ ❨139❩ ❛ How confusing to live in the shadow of a shadow. ❜ ❨140❩ ❛ Do you ever feel like bad things are going to happen, and you can’t stop them? You can’t do anything, you just have to wait? ❜ ❨141❩ ❛ Sometimes my scars have a mind of their own. ❜ ❨142❩ ❛ Everyone has their own version of a memory. ❜ ❨143❩ ❛ Isn’t a smile a girl’s best weapon? ❜ ❨144❩ ❛ My sense of weightlessness, I think, comes from the fact that I know so little about my past. ❜ ❨145❩ ❛ Do what I want; I might like you. ❜ ❨146❩ ❛ I feel sorry for Persephone because even when she’s back with the living, people are afraid of her because of where’s she’s been. ❜ ❨147❩ ❛ She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. ❜ ❨148❩ ❛ The sight of it actually does something to you, makes you less human. ❜ ❨149❩ ❛ It infects you. It ruined me. ❜ ❨150❩ ❛ Your health is not a debt you just cancel. The body collects. ❜ ❨151❩ ❛ Men love to put things inside women, don’t they? ❜ ❨152❩ ❛ We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. ❜ ❨153❩ ❛ Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women. ❜ ❨154❩ ❛ The strongest of all warriors are these two — time and patience. ❜ ❨155❩ ❛ If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war. ❜ ❨156❩ ❛ There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. ❜ ❨157❩ ❛ The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness. ❜ ❨158❩ ❛ Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy. ❜ ❨159❩ ❛ It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong. ❜ ❨160❩ ❛ You can love a person dear to you with a human love, but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. ❜ ❨161❩ ❛ If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed. ❜ ❨162❩ ❛ We are asleep until we fall in love! ❜ ❨163❩ ❛ I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself. ❜ ❨164❩ ❛ Everything I know, I know because of love. ❜ ❨165❩ ❛ Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. ❜ ❨166❩ ❛ If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ❜ ❨167❩ ❛ Yes, love, but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. ❜ ❨168❩ ❛ How can one be well...when one suffers morally? ❜ ❨169❩ ❛ Kings are the slaves of history. ❜ ❨170❩ ❛ God is the same everywhere. ❜ ❨171❩ ❛ Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. ❜ ❨172❩ ❛ One must be cunning and wicked in this world. ❜ ❨173❩ ❛ We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them. ❜ ❨174❩ ❛ When one's head is gone one doesn't weep over one's hair! ❜ ❨175❩ ❛ For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed? ❜ ❨176❩ ❛ He did what heroes do after their work is accomplished; he died. ❜ ❨177❩ ❛ Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps. ❜ ❨178❩ ❛ Everything ends in death, everything. Death is terrible. ❜ ❨179❩ ❛ The distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable. ❜ ❨180❩ ❛ How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? ❜ ❨181❩ ❛ The wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. ❜ ❨182❩ ❛ When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. ❜ ❨183❩ ❛ My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: the parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seem to have vanished completely. ❜ ❨184❩ ❛ Would it be worse to love someone who is no longer there, or not to love someone who is? ❜ ❨185❩ ❛ Like mirrors stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in darkness. ❜ ❨186❩ ❛ It is not that I was credulous, simply that I believed in all things dark and dangerous. ❜ ❨187❩ ❛ Sometimes you do things you regret, but there's nothing you can do about them. Times change. Doors close behind you. You move on. ❜ ❨188❩ ❛ Love will be an impulse that will inspire and ruin in equal measure. ❜ ❨189❩ ❛ He died alone. It don't matter a rat's ass whether there was anyone with him or not. He died alone. ❜ ❨190❩ ❛ It was love, I knew, and it tasted like champagne in my mind. ❜ ❨191❩ ❛ The end of the world is a strange concept. The world is always ending, and the end is always being averted, by love or foolishness or just plain old dumb luck. ❜ ❨192❩ ❛ She was my dream; and if you touch a dream it vanishes, like a soap bubble. ❜ ❨193❩ ❛ Daylight is always safe. ❜ ❨194❩ ❛ If not for death, they'd be content to simply exist, but with death, well, their lives will have meaning. ❜ ❨195❩ ❛ You want to know the future, love? Then wait. ❜ ❨196❩ ❛ There are things in the darkness beneath us that wish us harm. ❜ ❨197❩ ❛ Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated ❜ ❨198❩ ❛ But sometimes you leave blood on your instruments. ❜ ❨199❩ ❛ I'd like to be a wolf. Not all the time. Just sometimes. In the dark. I would run through the forests. ❜ ❨200❩ ❛ You've seen them. They have mouths that twitch, and eyes that stare, and they babble and they mewl and they whimper. ❜ ❨201❩ ❛ They are not mad, or rather, the loss of their sanity is the lesser of their problems. ❜ ❨202❩ ❛ Good a reason for writing as I know: releasing demons, letting them fly. ❜ ❨203❩ ❛ That miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance; when nothing matters, and in which reality seems scraped thin and threadbare. ❜ ❨204❩ ❛ Someone had scrawled graffiti in black marker on the metal: JUST DIE, it said. Like it is easy. ❜ ❨205❩ ❛ Winter started today. The sky turned grey and the snow began to fall and it did not stop falling until well after dark. ❜ ❨206❩ ❛ Memory is the great deceiver. ❜ ❨207❩ ❛ Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ❜ ❨208❩ ❛ I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.  ❜ ❨209❩ ❛ If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. ❜ ❨210❩ ❛ I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other. ❜ ❨211❩ ❛ But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. ❜ ❨212❩ ❛ I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other would have borne it. ❜ ❨213❩ ❛ There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. ❜ ❨214❩ ❛ One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. ❜ ❨215❩ ❛ Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ❜ ❨216❩ ❛ You must be the best judge of your own happiness. ❜ ❨217❩ ❛ Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing ; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature ; and I do not think I ever shall. ❜ ❨218❩ ❛ Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much rather have been merry than wise. ❜ ❨219❩ ❛ If I have not spoken, it is because I am afraid I will awaken myself from this dream. ❜ ❨220❩ ❛ If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. ❜ ❨221❩ ❛ Faultless in spite of all her faults. ❜ ❨222❩ ❛ A heroine whom no one but myself will much like. ❜ ❨223❩ ❛ There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart. ❜ ❨224❩ ❛ Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air. ❜ ❨225❩ ❛ I pity you. I thought you cleverer. ❜ ❨226❩ ❛ Evil to some is always good to others. ❜ ❨227❩ ❛ I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. ❜ ❨228❩ ❛ She is loveliness itself. ❜ ❨229❩ ❛ Time does not compose me. ❜ ❨230❩ ❛ A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her. ❜ ❨231❩ ❛ I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice. ❜ ❨232❩ ❛ I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more. ❜ ❨233❩ ❛ I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment. ❜ ❨234❩ ❛ I examined my own heart. And there you were. Never, I fear, to be removed. ❜ ❨235❩ ❛ With all your little faults, you are an excellent creature. ❜ ❨236❩ ❛ You have another long walk before you. ❜ ❨237❩ ❛ The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown. ❜ ❨238❩ ❛ What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? ❜ ❨239❩ ❛ Out of the frying pan into the fire! ❜ ❨240❩ ❛ We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity. ❜ ❨241❩ ❛ She sleeps. And now she wakes each day a little less. ❜ ❨242❩ ❛ And, oh, God . . . how frequently I weep! ❜ ❨243❩ ❛ From the coffin of your madness there is no escape. ❜ ❨244❩ ❛ I am feeling supernatural tonight. I want to eat diamonds. ❜ ❨245❩ ❛ All the same there is a chance that if we keep on shaking our chains, one day, some day, the clasps upon the shackles will part. ❜ ❨246❩ ❛ It was sad music fit to make you cut your throat. ❜ ❨247❩ ❛ Nothing is more boring than being forced to play. ❜ ❨248❩ ❛ Amongst the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest? ❜ ❨249❩ ❛ Wherein does a woman’s honour reside? In her vagina or in her spirit? ❜ ❨250❩ ❛ Perhaps...I could not be content with mere contentment! ❜ ❨251❩ ❛ Have you ever stared stark failure in the face? The trick is to outstare it. ❜ ❨252❩ ❛ Sometimes it seems that the faces exist of themselves, in a disembodied somewhere, waiting for the one who will wear them, who will bring them to life. ❜ ❨253❩ ❛ I have the febrile gaiety of a being without a past, without a present, yet I exist. ❜ ❨254❩ ❛ I felt myself turning, willy-nilly, from a woman into an idea. ❜ ❨255❩ ❛ She looks wonderful, but she doesn't look right. ❜ ❨256❩ ❛ The one-eyed man will be King in the country of the blind. ❜ ❨257❩ ❛ I raised you up to fly to the heavens, not to brood over a clutch of eggs! ❜ ❨258❩ ❛ I love to hear my bones rattle. That’s how I know I’m alive. ❜ ❨259❩ ❛ I learnt, first, as the birds do, from the birds. ❜ ❨260❩ ❛ Inside and outside match exactly, but both are badly wrong. ❜ ❨261❩ ❛ During the less-than-blink of time it took the last chime to die, there came a vertiginous sensation. ❜ ❨262❩ ❛ I fear a wound not of the body but the soul, an irreconcilable division between myself and the rest of humankind. ❜ ❨263❩ ❛ I fear the proof of my own singularity. ❜ ❨264❩ ❛ Still nothing could calm the fearful storm in my erupting skin. ❜ ❨265❩ ❛ Petersburg, loveliest of all hallucinations. ❜ ❨266❩ ❛ A breathless second between black forest and the frozen sea. ❜ ❨267❩ ❛ I'm beginning to feel totally cut off from the world. ❜ ❨268❩ ❛ What does this all mean? Where are we? ❜ ❨269❩ ❛ Sometimes I bleed. ❜ ❨270❩ ❛ If you see a ghost, you say "hello". ❜ ❨271❩ ❛ The war is not over. ❜ ❨272❩ ❛ You're not going. You left us once already. ❜ ❨273❩ ❛ You can’t go! ❜ ❨274❩ ❛ I loved you, but that wasn't enough, was it? ❜ ❨275❩ ❛ If you're dead, then leave me in peace. ❜ ❨276❩ ❛ The only thing that moves here is the light, but it changes everything. ❜ ❨277❩ ❛ I won't ask for forgiveness for something I didn't do! ❜ ❨278❩ ❛ Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead. ❜ ❨279❩ ❛ Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things. ❜ ❨280❩ ❛ Sooner or later, they will find you. ❜ ❨281❩ ❛ They're everywhere - they say this house is theirs. ❜ ❨282❩ ❛ You're always teasing me, and telling lies. I'm sick of it. ❜ ❨283❩ ❛ Others will come. Sometimes we'll sense them. Other times, we won't. ❜ ❨284❩ ❛ No crying now. No crying. Stop that. Here. Look what an awful face you've got when you cry. ❜ ❨285❩ ❛ You listen to me. I've seen them too. ❜ ❨286❩ ❛ You'll see. There are going to be some big surprises. There are going to be... changes. ❜ ❨287❩ ❛ Why did you go and fight that stupid war that had nothing to do with us? Why didn't you stay like the others did? ❜ ❨288❩ ❛ Your place was here with your family. ❜ ❨289❩ ❛ So you say you know this house well? ❜ ❨290❩ ❛ I wasn't expecting you so soon. ❜ ❨291❩ ❛ What's the matter? Has the cat got your tongue? ❜ ❨292❩ ❛ You mean they just vanished? Into thin air? ❜ ❨293❩ ❛ No door must be opened without the previous one being closed first. ❜ ❨294❩ ❛ Here, most of the time, you can hardly see your way. ❜ ❨295❩ ❛ Whatever you do, don't open the curtains. ❜ ❨296❩ ❛ Now, come on. Eyes closed. ❜ ❨297❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. ❜ ❨298❩ ❛ By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨299❩ ❛ I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. ❜ ❨300❩ ❛ And the reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨301❩ ❛ Love does not exist, it's like religion, made to control you. ❜ ❨302❩ ❛ After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. ❜ ❨303❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨304❩ ❛ Everything in the street today seems soft focus. ❜ ❨305❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low. ❜ ❨306❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin’ miles off the pace. ❜ ❨307❩ ❛ It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the way things are in a dream. ❜ ❨308❩ ❛ It’s all okay, it’s all beautiful; but I fear that this internal sea is going to subside soon, leaving this poisonous shite washed up, stranded up in my body. ❜ ❨309❩ ❛ It cuts me up. It confuses me. ❜ ❨310❩ ❛ It's not funny laughter. This is lynch mob laughter. ❜ ❨311❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨312❩ ❛ They mean well, and they mean well to me, but there's no way under the sun that they can appreciate what I feel, what I need. ❜ ❨313❩ ❛ The pit of melancholy is a bottomless one, and I am descending fast. ❜ ❨314❩ ❛ Living like this is a full-time business. ❜ ❨315❩ ❛ I’ll stand or fall alone. ❜ ❨316❩ ❛ We are no wiser now than at the start. ❜ ❨317❩ ❛ This is pathetic, and fucking boring. ❜ ❨318❩ ❛ Death is usually a process, rather than an event. ❜ ❨319❩ ❛ We're ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? ❜ ❨320❩ ❛ We are all acquaintances now. ❜ ❨321❩ ❛ The problem is that this beautiful ocean carries with it loads of poisonous flotsam and jetsam. ❜ ❨322❩ ❛ Life is beautiful. I'm going to enjoy it, and I'm going to have a long life. ❜ ❨323❩ ❛ The grim reality of impending death can be talked away by trying to invest in the present reality of life. ❜ ❨324❩ ❛ There must be more to life than this. ❜ ❨325❩ ❛ We all see what we want to see. ❜ ❨326❩ ❛ Statistically speaking, you're more likely to be killed by a member of your own family or a close friend, than by anyone else. ❜ ❨327❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨328❩ ❛ Maybe that's what love is: it's being pissed off. ❜ ❨329❩ ❛ You can forget who you are if you're alone too much. ❜ ❨330❩ ❛ Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God. ❜ ❨331❩ ❛ Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly.  ❜ ❨332❩ ❛ We must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. ❜ ❨333❩ ❛ Everyone wants to feel like a princess, and princesses are selfish and overbearing. ❜ ❨334❩ ❛ We shouldn't have been so scornful; we should have had compassion. But compassion takes work, and we were young. ❜ ❨335❩ ❛ How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it. ❜ ❨336❩ ❛ Amazing how the heart clutches at anything familiar, whimpering: Mine! Mine! ❜ ❨337❩ ❛ All creatures know that some must die ; that all the rest may take and eat. ❜ ❨338❩ ❛ Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? ❜ ❨339❩ ❛ Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance. ❜ ❨340❩ ❛ Why are we designed to see the world as supremely beautiful just as we're about to be snuffed? Do rabbits feel the same as the fox teeth bite down on their necks? Is it mercy? ❜ ❨341❩ ❛ Love is useless, it leads you into dumb exchanges in which you give too much away, and then you get bitter and mean. ❜ ❨342❩ ❛ Maybe sadness is a kind of hunger. Maybe the two go together. ❜ ❨343❩ ❛ Now I can see how that can happen. You can fall in love with anybody -- a fool, a criminal, a nothing. There are no good rules. ❜ ❨344❩ ❛ If you really want to stay the same age you are now forever and ever, try jumping off the roof: death's a sure-fire method for stopping time. ❜ ❨345❩ ❛ You couldn’t leave words lying around where our enemies might find them. ❜ ❨346❩ ❛ I'm fine, for the moment. And the moment is the only time we can be fine in. ❜ ❨347❩ ❛ Because if you can't wish, why bother? ❜ ❨348❩ ❛ It's better to hope than mope! ❜ ❨349❩ ❛ Reality has too much darkness in it. Too many crows. ❜ ❨350❩ ❛ In any case, time is not a thing that passes, it’s a sea on which you float. ❜ ❨351❩ ❛ I know I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to deceive myself. I desperately need to believe such pure joy is still possible. ❜ ❨352❩ ❛ Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered. ❜ ❨353❩ ❛ Behind my eyelids I saw an animal. It was golden colour, with gentle green eyes and canine teeth, and curly wool instead of fur. It opened its mouth, but it did not speak. Instead, it yawned. ❜ ❨354❩ ❛ ‘Why can't I believe?’ I asked the darkness. ❜ ❨355❩ ❛ Everyone’s too sad for everything. ❜ ❨356❩ ❛ If you can’t stop the waves, go sailing. ❜ ❨357❩ ❛ I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. ❜ ❨358❩ ❛ Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. ❜ ❨359❩ ❛ In the end, we'll all become stories. ❜ ❨360❩ ❛ I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. ❜ ❨361❩ ❛ If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. ❜ ❨362❩ ❛ If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. ❜ ❨363❩ ❛ Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results. ❜ ❨364❩ ❛ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you've been. ❜ ❨365❩ ❛ Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? ❜ ❨366❩ ❛ We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. ❜ ❨367❩ ❛ If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? ❜ ❨368❩ ❛ You fit into me like a hook into an eye. ❜ ❨369❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened. ❜ ❨370❩ ❛ Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. ❜ ❨371❩ ❛ Women have curious ways of hurting someone else. ❜ ❨372❩ ❛ This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons. ❜ ❨373❩ ❛ Get rid of death. Make it be spring. ❜ ❨374❩ ❛ You are innocent as a bathtub full of bullets. ❜ ❨375❩ ❛ I am the space you desecrate as you pass through. ❜ ❨376❩ ❛ Favour me and give me riches, destroy my enemies. Save me from death. ❜ ❨377❩ ❛ She is a raw voice loose in the rooms beneath me. ❜ ❨378❩ ❛ Isn't the moon warm enough for you, why do you need the blanket of another body? ❜ ❨379❩ ❛ This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ❜ ❨380❩ ❛ If you look long enough eventually you will see me. ❜ ❨381❩ ❛ I would like to sleep with you, to enter your sleep as its smooth dark wave slides over my head. ❜ ❨382❩ ❛ I would like to give you the silver branch, the small white flower, the one word that will protect you from the grief. ❜ ❨383❩ ❛ But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling. ❜ ❨384❩ ❛ How else can we live, these days, except in the midst of ruin? ❜ ❨385❩ ❛ What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. ❜ ❨386❩ ❛ Gods always come in handy, they justify almost anything. ❜ ❨387❩ ❛ We loved with a love that was more than love. ❜ ❨388❩ ❛ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ❜ ❨389❩ ❛ The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? ❜ ❨390❩ ❛ There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportion. ❜ ❨391❩ ❛ Never to suffer would never to have been blessed. ❜ ❨392❩ ❛ Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear. ❜ ❨393❩ ❛ And all I loved, I loved alone. ❜ ❨394❩ ❛ Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute. ❜ ❨395❩ ❛ The best things in life make you sweaty. ❜ ❨396❩ ❛ There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. ❜ ❨397❩ ❛ Anything is better than this agony. ❜ ❨398❩ ❛ You fancy me mad. ❜ ❨399❩ ❛ I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. ❜ ❨400❩ ❛ Who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? ❜ ❨401❩ ❛ Leave my loneliness unbroken! ❜ ❨402❩ ❛ A more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrills every fibre of my frame. ❜ ❨403❩ ❛ The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. ❜ ❨404❩ ❛ Let my heart be still a moment. ❜ ❨405❩ ❛ You call it hope —  It is but agony of desire. ❜ ❨406❩ ❛ Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not? ❜ ❨407❩ ❛ To die laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! ❜ ❨408❩ ❛ The beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. ❜ ❨409❩ ❛ Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. ❜ ❨410❩ ❛ I have been happy, though in a dream. ❜ ❨411❩ ❛ Nevermore. ❜ ❨412❩ ❛ The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life. ❜ ❨413❩ ❛ I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. ❜ ❨414❩ ❛ The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls. ❜ ❨415❩ ❛ And if I died, at least I will have died for you! ❜ ❨416❩ ❛ It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. ❜ ❨417❩ ❛ Hurt and humiliation — But this, I can not take. ❜ ❨418❩ ❛ The walls in there have ears. ❜ ❨419❩ ❛ This is for your ears only. ❜ ❨420❩ ❛ What is it? You have me scared. ❜ ❨421❩ ❛ Whoever isn’t for us, is against us. ❜ ❨422❩ ❛ You are just a body; to be dumped, disposed of like a carcass, left out for the birds to feed on. ❜ ❨423❩ ❛ The dead will have to forgive me. ❜ ❨424❩ ❛ From now on and no matter how your mind may I change, I will not accept your help. ❜ ❨425❩ ❛ If death comes, so be it. There will be glory in it. ❜ ❨426❩ ❛ Live, then; and live with your choice. ❜ ❨427❩ ❛ I am doing what has to be done. ❜ ❨428❩ ❛ Nothing is going to stop the ones that love you from keeping on loving you. ❜ ❨429❩ ❛ Worst is the man who has all the good advice, and then because his nerve fails, fails to act in accordance with it, as a leader should. ❜ ❨430❩ ❛ Only a loony would walk himself into this. ❜ ❨431❩ ❛ Why do you need such fences and defences? ❜ ❨432❩ ❛ Enough. Do not anger me. ❜ ❨433❩ ❛ The gods, you think, will side with the likes of him? ❜ ❨434❩ ❛ Watch it. You are over stepping. ❜ ❨435❩ ❛ I warn you. You should keep a civil tongue. ❜ ❨436❩ ❛ There is no such thing as an oath the can not be broken. ❜ ❨437❩ ❛ Every now and then, the things you’d hardly let yourself imagine, actually happen. ❜ ❨438❩ ❛ And you stand over this? This is the truth? ❜ ❨439❩ ❛ The bigger the resistance, the bigger the collapse. ❜ ❨440❩ ❛ Iron that’s forged the hardest, snaps the quickest. ❜ ❨441❩ ❛ Even the wildest horses come to heel when they are reined & bitted right. ❜ ❨442❩ ❛ That’s how guilt affects some people. They break and everything comes out. ❜ ❨443❩ ❛ Will it be enough for you? To see me executed? ❜ ❨444❩ ❛ So you know something no one else knows? ❜ ❨445❩ ❛ They know it too. They are just too afraid to say it. ❜ ❨446❩ ❛ If you die, how will I keep on living? ❜ ❨447❩ ❛ There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'. ❜ ❨448❩ ❛ How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. ❜ ❨449❩ ❛ Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body. ❜ ❨450❩ ❛ I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me. ❜ ❨451❩ ❛ For this moment, this one moment, we are together.  ❜ ❨452❩ ❛ Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. ❜ ❨453❩ ❛ I am as neat as a cat in my habits. ❜ ❨454❩ ❛ Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me. ❜ ❨455❩ ❛ I am the foam that sweeps and fills the uttermost rims of the rocks with whiteness; I am also a girl, here in this room. ❜ ❨456❩ ❛ We are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe ❨457❩ that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie ❨458❩ asleep. ❜ ❨459❩ ❛ These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. ❜ ❨460❩ ❛ Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. ❜ ❨461❩ ❛ The moment is all; the moment is enough. ❜ ❨462❩ ❛ I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given. ❜ ❨463❩ ❛ I am not one and simple, but complex and many. ❜ ❨464❩ ❛ And if you are dead, I shall weep. ❜ ❨465❩ ❛ But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful. ❜ ❨466❩ ❛ But our hatred is almost indistinguishable from our love. ❜ ❨467❩ ❛ I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams. ❜ ❨468❩ ❛ Life is a dream surely. ❜ ❨469❩ ❛ I think sometimes I am not a woman, but the light that falls on this gate, on this ground. I am the seasons, I think sometimes, January, May, November; the mud, the mist, the dawn. ❜ ❨470❩ ❛ Oh, I am in love with life! ❜ ❨471❩ ❛ I have been knotted; I have been torn apart. ❜ ❨472❩ ❛ There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death. ❜ ❨473❩ ❛ I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am. ❜ ❨474❩ ❛ I ride rough waters, and shall sink with no one to save me. ❜ ❨475❩ ❛ I am above the earth now. I am no longer upright, to be knocked against and damaged. ❜ ❨476❩ ❛ I see it all. I feel it all. ❜ ❨477❩ ❛ Death is woven in with the violets. Death and again death. ❜ ❨478❩ ❛ We have been walking for hours it seems. But where? I cannot remember. ❜ ❨479❩ ❛ If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged. ❜ ❨480❩ ❛ When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass. ❜ ❨481❩ ❛ Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word; - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase.  ❜ ❨482❩ ❛ Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor. ❜ ❨483❩ ❛ If the world treats you well, you come to believe you are deserving of it. ❜ ❨484❩ ❛ If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go. ❜ ❨485❩ ❛ It’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength. ❜ ❨486❩ ❛ There is no fool like an educated fool. ❜ ❨487❩ ❛ There are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. ❜ ❨488❩ ❛ I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened. ❜ ❨489❩ ❛ Underneath it all is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. ❜ ❨490❩ ❛ And underneath all that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.  ❜ ❨491❩ ❛ The small details of life often hide a great significance. ❜ ❨492❩ ❛ Guilt comes to you not from the things you've done, but from the things that others have done to you. ❜ ❨493❩ ❛ I wonder, how can I be all of these different things at once? ❜ ❨494❩ ❛ It is always a mistake to curse back openly at those who are stronger than you unless there is a fence between. ❜ ❨495❩ ❛ Some call this "Eve's curse," but I think that is stupid because the real curse of Eve was having to put up with the nonsense of Adam. ❜ ❨496❩ ❛ I don't know why they are all so eager to be remembered. What good will it do them? There are some things that should be forgotten by everyone, and never spoken of again. ❜ ❨497❩ ❛ I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely. ❜ ❨498❩ ❛ If they want a monster so badly they ought to be provided by one. ❜ ❨499❩ ❛ It’s as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent. ❜ ❨500❩ ❛ Today you wear your habitual expression of strained anxiety; you smell of violets. ❜ ❨501❩ ❛ Of course you have always been an idealist, and filled with your optimistic dreams; but reality must at some time obtrude. ❜ ❨502❩ ❛ I wonder what would become of me, and comfort myself that in a hundred years I will be dead and at peace. ❜ ❨503❩ ❛ For it is not always the one that strikes the blow that is the actual murderer. ❜ ❨504❩ ❛ There is a “do this” or “do that” with God, but not any “because”. ❜ ❨505❩ ❛ If you have a need and they find it out, they will use it against you. The best way is to stop from wanting anything. ❜ ❨506❩ ❛ They say, why don’t you ever smile or laugh, we never see you smiling, and I say I suppose I have gotten out of the way of it, my face won’t bend in that direction any more. ❜ ❨507❩ ❛ I was shut up inside that doll of myself, and my true voice could not get out. ❜ ❨508❩ ❛ I see what you’re after. You are a collector. You think all you have to do is give me an apple, and then you can collect me. ❜ ❨509❩ ❛ If you want to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before you have made the same life choice. ❜ ❨510❩ ❛ Then there's the future. Sheer vertigo. ❜ ❨511❩ ❛ Nature is to zoos as God is to churches. ❜ ❨512❩ ❛ After everything that's happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? ❜ ❨513❩ ❛ There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive. ❜ ❨514❩ ❛ These things sneak up on me for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency. ❜ ❨515❩ ❛ Toast cannot be explained by any rational means. Toast is me. I am toast. ❜ ❨516❩ ❛ You can’t buy it, but it has a price. Everything has a price. ❜ ❨517❩ ❛ As a species were doomed by hope, then? You could call it hope. That, or desperation. ❜ ❨518❩ ❛ I am not my childhood. ❜ ❨519❩ ❛ Human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else and live on forever. ❜ ❨520❩ ❛ “I'll make you mine”, lovers said in old books. They never said, “I'll make you me.” ❜ ❨521❩ ❛ How much is too much, how far is too far? ❜ ❨522❩ ❛ Expectation isn't the same as desire. ❜ ❨523❩ ❛ Why not cut to the chase? ❜ ❨524❩ ❛ Maybe there aren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. ❜ ❨525❩ ❛ I thought you didn’t believe in God. ❜ ❨526❩ ❛ I need at least the illusion of being understood. ❜ ❨527❩ ❛ What change would have altered the course of events? In the big picture, nothing. In the small picture, so much. ❜ ❨528❩ ❛ You are only looking at the dirt under your feet. It's not good for you. ❜ ❨529❩ ❛ I like to keep only the bright side of myself turned towards you.  ❜ ❨530❩ ❛ Grief in the face of inevitable death. The wish to stop time. The human condition. ❜ ❨531❩ ❛ So many crucial events take place behind people’s backs, when they aren’t in a position to watch: birth and death, for instance. ❜ ❨532❩ ❛ Would you kill someone you loved to spare them pain? ❜ ❨533❩ ❛ When the water’s moving faster than the boat, you can’t control a thing. ❜ ❨534❩ ❛ Don't be so fucking sentimental. ❜ ❨535❩ ❛ Wrong, as usual. ❜ ❨536❩ ❛ Why do you want to talk about ugly things? ❜ ❨537❩ ❛ I understand why serial killers send helpful clues to the police. ❜ ❨538❩ ❛ Take your time, leave mine alone. ❜ ❨539❩ ❛ You will hear thunder and remember me. ❜ ❨540❩ ❛ If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly. ❜ ❨541❩ ❛ I seem to myself an accidental guest in this dreadful body. ❜ ❨542❩ ❛ Call me a sinner, mock me maliciously. ❜ ❨543❩ ❛ I, from the very beginning, seemed to myself like someone's dream or delirium. Or a reflection in someone else's mirror. Without flesh, without meaning, without a name. ❜ ❨544❩ ❛ I knew the list of crimes that I was destined to commit. ❜ ❨545❩ ❛ The future ripens in the past, so the past rots in the future. ❜ ❨546❩ ❛ You are untranslatable into any one tongue. ❜ ❨547❩ ❛ I was hoping my silence would fit yours. ❜ ❨548❩ ❛ See, we were never about butterflies. All about us is unearthly and radiant. ❜ ❨549❩ ❛ You do not know just what you've been forgiven. ❜ ❨550❩ ❛ I need to slaughter my memory.  ❜ ❨551❩ ❛ Forgive me that I appeared to you in waking dreams. ❜ ❨552❩ ❛ I will condemn, I will forget, I will give comfort to the enemy. ❜ ❨553❩ ❛ I know beginnings, I know endings too, and life-in-death. ❜ ❨554❩ ❛ Wild honey smells of freedom. But gold smells of nothing. ❜ ❨555❩ ❛ You are three times more beautiful than angels. ❜ ❨556❩ ❛ I will kill you without spilling your blood on the ground, not touching you with my hand, not giving you one glance. ❜ ❨557❩ ❛ You invented me. There is no such earthly being. ❜ ❨558❩ ❛ You’re late. Way too late. I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. ❜ ❨559❩ ❛ Forgive me that I felt forsaken. Forgive me that I kept mistaking too many others for you. ❜ ❨560❩ ❛ Real tenderness can’t be confused, it’s quiet and can’t be heard. ❜ ❨561❩ ❛ What else lived in that house besides us? ❜ ❨562❩ ❛ How unhappy we are together! ❜ ❨563❩ ❛ I defend not my voice, but my silence. ❜ ❨564❩ ❛ Without love, I'm more at ease, I'm sure. ❜ ❨565❩ ❛ I've got no more tears or explanations. ❜ ❨566❩ ❛ I’m not complaining. Happiness is not for me. ❜ ❨567❩ ❛ Are you not the only tie between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise? ❜ ❨568❩ ❛ In the morning we shall find out who has died in the night. ❜ ❨569❩ ❛ I was not a lovable child, and I've grown into a deeply unlovable adult. ❜ ❨570❩ ❛ The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it. ❜ ❨571❩ ❛ I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark. ❜ ❨572❩ ❛ I am not angry or sad or happy to see you. I could not give a shit. You don't even ripple. ❜ ❨573❩ ❛ I was raised feral, and I mostly stayed that way. ❜ ❨574❩ ❛ I can feel a better version of me somewhere in there - hidden behind a liver or attached to a bit of spleen. But the meanness usually wins out. ❜ ❨575❩ ❛ I felt something loosen in me, that shouldn't have loosened. A stitch come undone. ❜ ❨576❩ ❛ Everyone who keeps a secret, itches to tell it. ❜ ❨577❩ ❛ Coffee goes great with sudden death. ❜ ❨578❩ ❛ I should just listen to my gut and then do the opposite. ❜ ❨579❩ ❛ “Smile, it can't be that bad!” Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad. ❜ ❨580❩ ❛ Everything bad in the world already did happen. ❜ ❨581❩ ❛ You’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? ❜ ❨582❩ ❛ Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened. ❜ ❨583❩ ❛ Homesick for a place I've never been. ❜ ❨584❩ ❛ Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. ❜ ❨585❩ ❛ It is always consoling to think of suicide. It's what gets one through many a bad night. ❜ ❨586❩ ❛ Do you understand this is serious? ❜ ❨587❩ ❛ Sometimes it feels good to fuck with something. Instead of always being fucked with. ❜ ❨588❩ ❛ How could you kill something you cared enough to name? ❜ ❨589❩ ❛ Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs. ❜ ❨590❩ ❛ We have the same chemicals in our blood: shame, anger, greed. Unjustified nostalgia. ❜ ❨591❩ ❛ I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. ❜ ❨592❩ ❛ The phrase fuck you may not rest on the tip of my tongue, but it’s near. Midtongue. ❜ ❨593❩ ❛ Nothing to it but to do it. ❜ ❨594❩ ❛ There are a lot of people who deserve a lesson, deserve to really understand, that nothing comes easy, that most things are going to go sour. ❜ ❨595❩ ❛ If ifs and buts were candies and nuts we’d all have a very Merry Christmas. ❜ ❨596❩ ❛ Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. ❜ ❨597❩ ❛ What does it do to a girl who knows her mother is a murderer? ❜ ❨598❩ ❛ That mean old bitch across the street bit it. ❜ ❨599❩ ❛ Survival is a talent. ❜ ❨600❩ ❛ Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. ❜ ❨601❩ ❛ Who has the courage to burn themselves? ❜ ❨602❩ ❛ Is insanity just a matter of dropping the act? ❜ ❨603❩ ❛ Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? ❜ ❨604❩ ❛ You need to be well fed, clothed, and housed to have time for this much self-pity. ❜ ❨605❩ ❛ When I am supposed to be awake, I am asleep; when I am supposed to speak, I am silent. When a pleasure offers itself to me, I avoid it. ❜ ❨606❩ ❛ There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same. ❜ ❨607❩ ❛ In a strange way we are free. We've reached the end of the line. We have nothing more to lose. ❜ ❨608❩ ❛ The world won’t stop because we aren’t in it anymore. ❜ ❨609❩ ❛ I can't answer the real question. All I can tell you is, it's easy. ❜ ❨610❩ ❛ I am lighter, airier than I’ve been in years. ❜ ❨611❩ ❛ I am not dead, yet something in me definitely is. ❜ ❨612❩ ❛ You meant that as an insult but I am taking it as a compliment. ❜ ❨613❩ ❛ What life can recover from that? ❜ ❨614❩ ❛ It's a fairly accurate portrait of me. It's accurate but it isn't profound. ❜ ❨615❩ ❛ Pull yourself together! There's nothing wrong with you. ❜ ❨616❩ ❛ It's quiet. It's like― I don't know. It's like falling off a cliff. ❜ ❨617❩ ❛ Once you start parsing a face, it's a peculiar item: squishy, pointy, with lots of air vents and wet spots. ❜ ❨618❩ ❛ I lost him. I did it on purpose. ❜ ❨619❩ ❛ It’s a mean world. There’s nobody to take care of you out there. ❜ ❨620❩ ❛ Reality is getting too dense. ❜ ❨621❩ ❛ I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favourite word. ❜ ❨622❩ ❛ I can't come up with reassuring answers to the terrible questions you raise. ❜ ❨623❩ ❛ A spring day, the sort that gives people hope: all soft winds and delicate smells of warm earth. Suicide weather. ❜ ❨624❩ ❛ Twenty-five chocolate chip cookies would be the perfect dinner. ❜ ❨625❩ ❛ A thought is a hard thing to control. ❜ ❨626❩ ❛ Life demands skills I don’t have. ❜ ❨627❩ ❛ Light like this does not exist, but we wish it did. We wish the sun could make us young and beautiful. Most of all, we wish that everyone we knew could be brightened simply by our looking at them. ❜ ❨628❩ ❛ It never stops, even at night, it’s my lullaby. ❜ ❨629❩ ❛ Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. ❜ ❨630❩ ❛ This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes. ❜ ❨631❩ ❛ I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. ❜ ❨632❩ ❛ Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. ❜ ❨633❩ ❛ Hatred is easier. Hatred is clear, metallic, one-handed, unwavering; unlike love. ❜ ❨634❩ ❛ Potential has a shelf life. ❜ ❨635❩ ❛ Don’t move. Stay like that, let me have that. ❜ ❨636❩ ❛ I have come to the edge, of the land. I could get pushed over. ❜ ❨637❩ ❛ Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ❜ ❨638❩ ❛ It disturbs me to learn I have hurt someone unintentionally. I want all my hurts to be intentional. ❜ ❨639❩ ❛ We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something. ❜ ❨640❩ ❛ This is what I miss, not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. ❜ ❨641❩ ❛ I am not good. I know too much to be good. I know myself. I know myself to be vengeful, greedy, secretive and sly. ❜ ❨642❩ ❛ You are amazing. Amazing and agonising and almost lethal. ❜ ❨643❩ ❛ In my dreams of this city I am always lost. ❜ ❨644❩ ❛ I don't know where these feelings have come from, I don’t know what I've done. ❜ ❨645❩ ❛ I am not the centre of your story, you are.  ❜ ❨646❩ ❛ I’m mad because you’re an asshole. ❜ ❨647❩ ❛ It's enormously pleasing to me, walking away. It's like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will. ❜ ❨648❩ ❛ There is never only one of anyone. ❜ ❨649❩ ❛ I can't do this without feeling I'm acting. ❜ ❨650❩ ❛ I am prepared for almost anything; except absence, except silence. ❜ ❨651❩ ❛ I’m losing my appetite for strangers. ❜ ❨652❩ ❛ You wear your cravings on the outside, like the suckers on a squid. You want it all. ❜ ❨653❩ ❛ Knowing too much about other people weakens you. You are forced to understand their reasons for doing things. ❜ ❨654❩ ❛ I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now. ❜ ❨655❩ ❛ Echoes of light, shining out of the midst of nothing. It's old light, and there's not much of it. But it's enough to see by. ❜ ❨656❩ ❛ Whoever cares the most will lose. ❜ ❨657❩ ❛ Young women need unfairness, it’s one of their few defences.  ❜ ❨658❩ ❛ Time has gone on without you. ❜ ❨659❩ ❛ Don't let the bastards grind you down. ❜ ❨660❩ ❛ Who can remember pain, once it’s over? Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. ❜ ❨661❩ ❛ Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some. ❜ ❨662❩ ❛ There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ❜ ❨663❩ ❛ Remember that forgiveness too is a power. ❜ ❨664❩ ❛ I am not your justification for existence. ❜ ❨665❩ ❛ I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. ❜ ❨666❩ ❛ If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending. ❜ ❨667❩ ❛ All you have to do is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard. ❜ ❨668❩ ❛ Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ❜ ❨669❩ ❛ I want everything back, the way it was. ❜ ❨670❩ ❛ You can't help what you feel, but you can help how you behave. ❜ ❨671❩ ❛ Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. ❜ ❨672❩ ❛ To want is to have a weakness. ❜ ❨673❩ ❛ There isn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. ❜ ❨674❩ ❛ The past is a great darkness, filled with echoes. ❜ ❨675❩ ❛ Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. ❜ ❨676❩ ❛ I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light. ❜ ❨677❩ ❛ The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. ❜ ❨678❩ ❛ By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you. ❜ ❨679❩ ❛ Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard. ❜ ❨680❩ ❛ Don't worry about forgiving me right now. There are more important things. ❜ ❨681❩ ❛ Keep the others safe. Don't let them suffer too much. If they have to die, let it be fast. ❜ ❨682❩ ❛ The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand. ❜ ❨683❩ ❛ The world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. ❜ ❨684❩ ❛ Nobody's heart is perfect. ❜ ❨685❩ ❛ One false move and I'm dead. ❜ ❨686❩ ❛ Watch out. I've got my eye on you. ❜ ❨687❩ ❛ Fear is a powerful stimulant. ❜ ❨688❩ ❛ I couldn't afford to lose you. ❜ ❨689❩ ❛ Name one hero who was happy. ---- You can’t. ❜ ❨690❩ ❛ I feel like I could eat the world raw. ❜ ❨691❩ ❛ We are like gods at the dawning of the world. ❜ ❨692❩ ❛ I could recognise him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. ❜ ❨693❩ ❛ There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw. ❜ ❨694❩ ❛ You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature. ❜ ❨695❩ ❛ He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. ❜ ❨696❩ ❛ Some men gain glory after they die, others fade. ❜ ❨697❩ ❛ I am made of memories. ❜ ❨698❩ ❛ Will you come with me? ❜ ❨699❩ ❛ I wish I had let you all die. ❜ ❨700❩ ❛ It is right to seek peace for the dead. You and I both know there is no peace for those who live after. ❜ ❨701❩ ❛ Bury us. Let us be free. ❜ ❨702❩ ❛ Go. He waits for you. ❜ ❨703❩ ❛ Nothing could eclipse the stain of this dirty, mortal mediocrity. ❜ ❨704❩ ❛ I know I have told you of this. ❜ ❨705❩ ❛ I don't know how you remember them all. I swear they look the same to me. ❜ ❨706❩ ❛ Perhaps you should get some new stories, so I don���t fucking kill myself of boredom. ❜ ❨707❩ ❛ I yearn for the darkness and silence of the underworld, where I can rest. ❜ ❨708❩ ❛ There is no honour in betraying your friends. ❜ ❨709❩ ❛ There is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong. ❜ ❨710❩ ❛ Divine blood flows differently. ❜ ❨711❩ ❛ How is there glory in taking life? We die so easily. ❜ ❨712❩ ❛ This is what I will miss, I think. I will kill myself rather than miss it. ❜ ❨713❩ ❛ How long do we have? ❜ ❨714❩ ❛ Do you think we fight hopeless wars? ❜ ❨715❩ ❛ There is no law that gods must be fair. ❜ ❨716❩ ❛ I do not fear ridicule. I never have. ❜ ❨717❩ ❛ You were always better with words than I. ❜ ❨718❩ ❛ Who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty? ❜ ❨719❩ ❛ When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. ❜ ❨720❩ ❛ That's how the madness of the world tries to colonise you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality. ❜ ❨721❩ ❛ The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. ❜ ❨722❩ ❛ Silence creates violence. ❜ ❨723❩ ❛ Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough. ❜ ❨724❩ ❛ There are certain kinds of connections that are so deep that when broken you feel the snap of it inside you. ❜ ❨725❩ ❛ Nothing that ever lived and breathed was truly objective—even in a vacuum, even if all that possessed the brain was a self-immolating desire for the truth. ❜ ❨726❩ ❛ We all live in a kind of continuous dream. ❜ ❨727❩ ❛ You can either waste time worrying about a death that might not come or concentrate on what’s left to you. ❜ ❨728❩ ❛ What can you do when your five senses are not enough? ❜ ❨729❩ ❛ We will neither be what we had been nor what we would become once we reach our destination. ❜ ❨730❩ ❛ Perhaps my only real expertise, my only talent, is to endure beyond the endurable. ❜ ❨731❩ ❛ When you are too close to the centre of a mystery there is no way to pull back. ❜ ❨732❩ ❛ I long ago stopped believing in promises. Biological imperatives, yes. Environmental factors, yes. Promises, no. ❜ ❨733❩ ❛ I look not for shooting stars but for fixed ones, and I try to imagine what kind of life lives in those celestial tidal pools so far from us. ❜ ❨734❩ ❛ I hesitated for just a moment. Some part of me wanted to see the creature, I think. If so, it was a very small part. I ran. ❜ ❨735❩ ❛ I don’t require any of this to have a deeper meaning. ❜ ❨736❩ ❛ All of this speculation is incomplete, inexact, inaccurate, useless. ❜ ❨737❩ ❛ We don’t have real answers, because we still don’t know what questions to ask. Our instruments are useless, our methodology broken, our motivations selfish. ❜ ❨738❩ ❛ This part I will do alone. Don’t follow. ❜ ❨739❩ ❛ People my entire life have told me I am too much in control, but that has never been the case. I have never truly been in control. ❜ ❨740❩ ❛ Has there always been someone like me to bury the bodies, to have regrets, to carry on after everyone else was dead? ❜ ❨741❩ ❛ I loved them, but I didn’t need them, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. ❜ ❨742❩ ❛ Places can impress themselves upon me, and I can become part of them with ease. ❜ ❨743❩ ❛ There is no one with me. I am all by myself. ❜ ❨744❩ ❛ Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic. ❜ ❨745❩ ❛ I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction, and they're very different. Almost none of us commit suicide, whereas almost all of us self-destruct. ❜ ❨746❩ ❛ What did you eat? You had rations for only two weeks. You were there for nearly four months. ❜ ❨747❩ ❛ Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool. ❜ ❨748❩ ❛ I need to know what’s inside. ❜ ❨749❩ ❛ These aren't decisions. They're impulses ❜ ❨750❩ ❛ What do you think I do when you’re away? Do you think I’m out in the garden pinning, looking up at the sky? ❜ ❨751❩ ❛ If I know what’s happened I can save their life. ❜ ❨752❩ ❛ They either went crazy or something in here killed them. ❜ ❨753❩ ❛ Something is coming through the fence! ❜ ❨754❩ ❛ Nothing is written in the stars. Not these stars, nor any others. No one controls your destiny. ❜ ❨755❩ ❛ People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. ❜ ❨756❩ ❛ Happy endings are still endings. ❜ ❨757❩ ❛ We believe in all sorts of things that aren't true; -- we call it history. ❜ ❨758❩ ❛ Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil? ❜ ❨759❩ ❛ In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realise it is far more common for men to turn into rats. ❜ ❨760❩ ❛ Girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise.  ❜ ❨761❩ ❛ Love makes hunters of us all. ❜ ❨762❩ ❛ There is much to hate in this world and way too much to love. ❜ ❨763❩ ❛ You confuse not speaking with not listening. ❜ ❨764❩ ❛ As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention. ❜ ❨765❩ ❛ The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say. ❜ ❨766❩ ❛ Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. ❜ ❨767❩ ❛ We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. ❜ ❨768❩ ❛ The wickedness of men is that their power breeds stupidity and blindness. ❜ ❨769❩ ❛ I know you don't want to hear this but someone has to say it! You are out of control! ❜ ❨770❩ ❛ Even at the very worst - there is always choice. ❜ ❨771❩ ❛ Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it. ❜ ❨772❩ ❛ Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on -- or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the entire universe is changed. ❜ ❨773❩ ❛ That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness. Life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same. ❜ ❨774❩ ❛ I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without. ❜ ❨775❩ ❛ It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new. ❜ ❨776❩ ❛ Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Always the godfather, never the god. ❜ ❨777❩ ❛ The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew. ❜ ❨778❩ ❛ Evil is an act, not an appetite. Everyone has the appetite. If you give in to it, that act is evil. The appetite is normal. ❜ ❨779❩ ❛ How many haven't wanted to slash the throat of some boor across the dining room table?  ❜ ❨780❩ ❛ Even God used silence as a strategy. ❜ ❨781❩ ❛ I learned failure early and mastered it. ❜ ❨782❩ ❛ It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all. ❜ ❨783❩ ❛ This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is a very wicked distraction. ❜ ❨784❩ ❛ Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery. ❜ ❨785❩ ❛ Wrong takes an awful long time to be proven, in my experience. ❜ ❨786❩ ❛ Such brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly. ❜ ❨787❩ ❛ I take responsibility only for the future, not the past. The past can't hurt you the way the future can. ❜ ❨788❩ ❛ Tell me to mind my own business, tell me to go fuck myself, to piss off, go on, say it, but don’t tell me nothing’s wrong. ❜ ❨789❩ ❛ The truth isn't a thing of fact or reason. It is simply what everyone agrees on. ❜ ❨790❩ ❛ One can't make peace with another by force. ❜ ❨791❩ ❛ I am a forgettable leaf on a tree. ❜ ❨792❩ ❛ That's all I want; --- to do no harm. ❜ ❨793❩ ❛ I only believe in the opposite of luck, whatever that is. ❜ ❨794❩ ❛ Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. ❜ ❨795❩ ❛ You’re too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and thanks to that we manage to endure the burden of the past. ❜ ❨796❩ ❛ Love, no matter what else it might be, is a natural talent. You are either born knowing how, or you never know. ❜ ❨797❩ ❛ Whatever you do, you will be sorry all the rest of your life. ❜ ❨798❩ ❛ There is no God worth worrying about. ❜ ❨799❩ ❛ The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love. ❜ ❨800❩ ❛ Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good. ❜ ❨801❩ ❛ Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the very end in itself. ❜ ❨802❩ ❛ Only God knows how much I love you. ❜ ❨803❩ ❛ There is no greater glory than to die for love. ❜ ❨804❩ ❛ Nothing resembles a person as much as the way he dies. ❜ ❨805❩ ❛ Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life. ❜ ❨806❩ ❛ Today, when I saw you, I realised that what is between us is nothing more than an illusion. ❜ ❨807❩ ❛ I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century. ❜ ❨808❩ ❛ I want to be myself again, to recover all that I was obliged to give up. ❜ ❨809❩ ❛ The only thing worse than bad health is a bad name. ❜ ❨810❩ ❛ This soup tastes like windows. ❜ ❨811❩ ❛ Why do you insist on talking about what does not exist? ❜ ❨812❩ ❛ One has to live a long time to know a man's true nature. ❜ ❨813❩ ❛ No, not rich, I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing. ❜ ❨814❩ ❛ My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse. ❜ ❨815❩ ❛ That may be the reason he does so many things, so that he will not have to think. ❜ ❨816❩ ❛ Love if it exists, is something separate: another life. ❜ ❨817❩ ❛ Things did not go as badly for me as they would for you. ❜ ❨818❩ ❛ There are things you do only for love. ❜ ❨819❩ ❛ I’ll have plenty of time to rest when I die. ❜ ❨820❩ ❛ There is no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age. ❜ ❨821❩ ❛ You treat me as if I were just anybody. ❜ ❨822❩ ❛ The symptoms of love are the same as those of cholera. ❜ ❨823❩ ❛ There is no law, human or divine, that you have not ignored. ❜ ❨824❩ ❛ Why is it that I feel I've known you so many years? ❜ ❨825❩ ❛ Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. ❜ ❨826❩ ❛ It doesn't matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. ❜ ❨827❩ ❛ We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real? ❜ ❨828❩ ❛ There must be something, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing. ❜ ❨829❩ ❛ If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. ❜ ❨830❩ ❛ If you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore. ❜ ❨831❩ ❛ You can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. ❜ ❨832❩ ❛ It was a pleasure to burn. ❜ ❨833❩ ❛ I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? ❜ ❨834❩ ❛ Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? ❜ ❨835❩ ❛ Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays? ❜ ❨836❩ ❛ Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? ❜ ❨837❩ ❛ I don't talk things. I talk the meaning of things. ❜ ❨838❩ ❛ I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. ❜ ❨839❩ ❛ I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. ❜ ❨840❩ ❛ That's the good part of dying; when you've nothing to lose, you run any risk you want. ❜ ❨841❩ ❛ Someday we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up. ❜ ❨842❩ ❛ You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. ❜ ❨843❩ ❛ You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. ❜ ❨844❩ ❛ When they give you lined paper, write the other way. ❜ ❨845❩ ❛ The sun burnt every day. It burnt time. ❜ ❨846❩ ❛ We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing. ❜ ❨847❩ ❛ I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago. ❜ ❨848❩ ❛ I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. ❜ ❨849❩ ❛ Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life! ❜ ❨850❩ ❛ How do you get so empty? Who takes it out of you? ❜ ❨851❩ ❛ It must be right. It seems so right. ❜ ❨852❩ ❛ To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. ❜ ❨853❩ ❛ It's my game. And no one can help me. Not even you. ❜ ❨854❩ ❛ What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. ❜ ❨855❩ ❛ Death is a long process. Your body is just the first part of you that croaks. Beyond that, your dreams have to die. Then your expectations. Your anger and memories must die. Your ego. Your pride and shame and ambition and hope. ❜ ❨856❩ ❛ Help me give up my addiction to hope. ❜ ❨857❩ ❛ Life is short, death is forever. ❜ ❨858❩ ❛ Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It’s an addiction to break. ❜ ❨859❩ ❛ If the living are haunted by the dead, then the dead are haunted by their own mistakes. ❜ ❨860❩ ❛ We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired. ❜ ❨861❩ ❛ All the demons of hell formerly reigned as gods in previous cultures. No it's not fair, but one man's god is another man's devil. ❜ ❨862❩ ❛ I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful. ❜ ❨863❩ ❛ It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities. ❜ ❨864❩ ❛ You fucked up. Game over. So just relax. ❜ ❨865❩ ❛ The greatest weapon any warrior can carry into battle is absolute certainty of her eternal soul. ❜ ❨866❩ ❛ If killing you will end my existence as well, be it. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. ❜ ❨867❩ ❛ I might be a touch of a sadist and a little bit jejune but at least I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. ❜ ❨868❩ ❛ Dying seems like the greatest weakness, and in a world where people say you're lazy for not shaving your legs, then being dead seems like the ultimate character flaw. ❜ ❨869❩ ❛ Any concept of right versus wrong, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. ❜ ❨870❩ ❛ To prove that I exist I must kill you. ❜ ❨871❩ ❛ I'd say that my life has been a way-too-long case history of chasing rainbows. ❜ ❨872❩ ❛ The world is a battle for attention, a war to be heard. ❜ ❨873❩ ❛ Every garden looks beautiful in May. ❜ ❨874❩ ❛ When we neglect to fear such brittle monstrosity, we render it powerless. ❜ ❨875❩ ❛ My taste for power continues to grow, as does my ability to accrue it. ❜ ❨876❩ ❛ Such language! Why don't you just take a dump in my ears? ❜ ❨877❩ ❛ You’d be foolish to count on people displaying high standards of honesty. ❜ ❨878❩ ❛ Depending on her mood, she can be more frightening than any demon or devil you might ever run across. ❜ ❨879❩ ❛ Cross your fingers! Maybe death won't happen to you. ❜ ❨880❩ ❛ Do not die while wearing cheap shoes. ❜ ❨881❩ ❛ Old habits die hard. ❜ ❨882❩ ❛ It's our attachments to a fixed identity that torture us. ❜ ❨883❩ ❛ What do I think I am? In a thousand words; I don't have a clue. ❨884❩ ❛ If I am to be saved it is because your love redeems me. ❜ ❨885❩ ❛ All I wanted was to be loved for myself. ❜ ❨886❩ ❛ I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer. ❜ ❨887❩ ❛ Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? ❜ ❨888❩ ❛ You have a heart that can hold the entire empire of the world. ❜ ❨889❩ ❛ Look, I am not laughing now, crying, crying for you. ❜ ❨890❩ ❛ Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead. ❜ ❨891❩ ❛ You are afraid of me! And yet I am not really wicked. Love me and you shall see! ❜ ❨892❩ ❛ Are people so unhappy when they love? --- Yes, when they love and are not sure of being loved. ❜ ❨893❩ ❛ Your soul is a beautiful thing. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept tonight. ❜ ❨894❩ ❛ Blood!...Blood!... That's a good thing! ❜ ❨895❩ ❛ Now I want to live like everybody else. I want to have a life like everybody else. ❜ ❨896❩ ❛ You will be the happiest of women. And we will sing, all by ourselves, till we swoon away with delight. ❜ ❨897❩ ❛ I should be as gentle as a lamb; and you could do anything with me that you pleased. ❜ ❨898❩ ❛ I am going to die of love, I am dying of love. That's how it is. I loved you so. I still love you so. ❜ ❨899❩ ❛ I am dying of love for her, I tell you! If only you knew how beautiful she was when she let me kiss her. ❜ ❨900❩ ❛ He fills me with horror but I do not hate him. How can I hate him? ❜ ❨901❩ ❛ Holy angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest. ❜ ❨902❩ ❛ Nothing is colder or more dead than my heart. ❜ ❨903❩ ❛ I had loved an angel and now I despise a woman. ❜ ❨904❩ ❛ Our lives are one masked ball. ❜ ❨905❩ ❛ Why do you condemn a man whom you have never met, whom no one knows and about whom even you yourself know nothing? ❜ ❨906❩ ❛ He would commit murder for me. ❜ ❨907❩ ❛ If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug, she is lost. But I shall save her. ❜ ❨908❩ ❛ We will go from here together or die together. ❜ ❨909❩ ❛ Your fear, your terror, all of that is just love and love of the most exquisite kind, the kind which people do not admit even to themselves. The kind that gives you a thrill, when you think of it. ❜ ❨910❩ ❛ Destiny has chained you to me forever. ❜ ❨911❩ ❛ You must never ask me that. ❜ ❨912❩ ❛ Are you afraid that you will change your mind? ❜ ❨913❩ ❛ You must come and fetch me in my dressing room at midnight exactly. ❜ ❨914❩ ❛ The holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mould yourself through the gaps. ❜ ❨915❩ ❛ I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts. ❜ ❨916❩ ❛ There’s something comforting about the sight of strangers safe at home. ❜ ❨917❩ ❛ I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head. ❜ ❨918❩ ❛ It’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to even mourn for it. ❜ ❨919❩ ❛ There’s nothing so painful, so corrosive, as suspicion. ❜ ❨920❩ ❛ When did you become so weak? ❜ ❨921❩ ❛ I don’t know where that strength went, I don’t remember losing it. I think that over time it got chipped away, bit by bit, by life, by the living of it. ❜ ❨922❩ ❛ Let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers. ❜ ❨923❩ ❛ Sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them. ❜ ❨924❩ ❛ I’m playing at real life instead of actually living it. ❜ ❨925❩ ❛ I’ve just got to let myself feel the pain, because if I don’t, if I keep numbing it, it’ll never really go away. ❜ ❨926❩ ❛ I am not the girl I used to be. I am no longer desirable, I’m off-putting in some way. It’s as if people can see the damage written all over me, can see it in my face, the way I hold myself, the way I move. ❜ ❨927❩ ❛ Who was it that said following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all. ❜ ❨928❩ ❛ It’s impossible to resist the kindness of strangers. ❜ ❨929❩ ❛ Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful physical contact with another person, just a hug or a heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches. ❜ ❨930❩ ❛ I have to find a way of making myself happy, I have to stop looking for happiness elsewhere. ❜ ❨931❩ ❛ How did I find myself here? I wonder where it started, my decline; I wonder at what point I could have halted it. Where did I take the wrong turn? ❜ ❨932❩ ❛ Now look -- Now look what you made me do. ❜ ❨933❩ ❛ It’s okay, whatever you did, whatever you’ve done: you suffered, you hurt, you deserve forgiveness. ❜ ❨934❩ ❛ They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. ❜ ❨935❩ ❛ You broke me and I broke us. ❜ ❨936❩ ❛ I’ve been the fool. If he does it with you, he’ll do it to you. ❜ ❨937❩ ❛ I’d never realised, not until now, how shameful it is to be pitied. ❜ ❨938❩ ❛ Sometimes, I don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll be happy if I never have to set foot outside the house again. ❜ ❨939❩ ❛ I don’t believe in soul mates, but there’s an understanding between us that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not for a long time. ❜ ❨940❩ ❛ There can be no greater agony, nothing can be more painful than the not knowing, which will never end. ❜ ❨941❩ ❛ Being the other woman is a huge turn-on, there’s no point in denying it: you’re the one he can’t help but betray his wife for, even though he loves her. That’s just how irresistible you are. ❜ ❨942❩ ❛ I feel a rush of gratitude so strong, it feels almost like love. ❜ ❨943❩ ❛ You don’t know how determined I can be. Once I’ve made my mind up, I’m a force to be reckoned with. ❜ ❨944❩ ❛ The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be. ❜ ❨945❩ ❛ You don’t have to be afraid of being alone. It’s not the worst thing, is it? ❜ ❨946❩ ❛ I have felt this way before. On a larger scale, to a more intense degree, of course, but I remember the quality of the pain. You don’t forget it. ❜ ❨947❩ ❛ If he thinks I’m going to sit around crying, he’s got another thing coming. ❜ ❨948❩ ❛ I don’t like to lose. It’s not like me. None of this is like me. I don’t get rejected. I’m the one who walks away. ❜ ❨949❩ ❛ I don’t remember anger, raging fury. I remember fear. ❜ ❨950❩ ❛ I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept in days. I hate it, hate insomnia more than anything, just lying there, brain going round, tick, tick, tick, tick. ❜ ❨951❩ ❛ Maybe the courage I need has nothing to do with telling the truth and everything to do with walking away. ❜ ❨952❩ ❛ I’m not beautiful, and I can’t have kids, so what does that make me? Worthless. ❜ ❨953❩ ❛ Failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under and I gave up hope. ❜ ❨954❩ ❛ It’s an odd thing to say, but I think this all the time; I don’t feel bad enough. ❜ ❨955❩ ❛ Some battles aren’t worth fighting. ❜ ❨956❩ ❛ I never felt guilty. I pretended I did. I had to. ❜ ❨957❩ ❛ I never meant for any of this to happen, we fell in love, what could we do? ❜ ❨958❩ ❛ What bothers me most is that I haven’t got to the end of my story, and I can’t start over with someone else, it’s too hard. ❜ ❨959❩ ❛ A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. ❜ ❨960❩ ❛ It isn’t only wickedness and scheming that make people unhappy, it is confusion and misunderstanding. ❜ ❨961❩ ❛ Falling in love can be achieved in a single word—a glance. ❜ ❨962❩ ❛ Though you think the world is at your feet, it can rise up and tread on you. ❜ ❨963❩ ❛ I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life. ❜ ❨964❩ ❛ It might hurt, it is horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but it is what it is to be in love. ❜ ❨965❩ ❛ It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. ❜ ❨966❩ ❛ Come back, come back to me. ❜ ❨967❩ ❛ In my thoughts I make love to you all day long. ❜ ❨968❩ ❛ The truth is I feel rather light headed and foolish in your presence and I don’t think I can blame the heat. ❜ ❨969❩ ❛ Beauty occupies a narrow band. Ugliness, on the other hand, has infinite variation. ❜ ❨970❩ ❛ Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy? ❜ ❨971❩ ❛ However, withered, I still feel myself to be exactly the same person I’ve always been. ❜ ❨972❩ ❛ Hate is a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational. ❜ ❨973❩ ❛ I’m going mad. Let me not be mad. ❜ ❨974❩ ❛ Is everyone really as alive as I am? ❜ ❨975❩ ❛ Every now and then, quite unintentionally, someone teaches you something about yourself. ❜ ❨976❩ ❛ Something has happened, hasn’t it? ❜ ❨977❩ ❛ I like to think that it isn’t weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness. ❜ ❨978❩ ❛ Is it possible that I am, in the modern term, in denial? ❜ ❨979❩ ❛ How could anyone presume to know the world through the eyes of an insect? ❜ ❨980❩ ❛ Not everything has a cause. Some things are simply so. ❜ ❨981❩ ❛ I’ll be quite honest with you. I’m torn between breaking your neck here and throwing you down the stairs. ❜ ❨982❩ ❛ How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong? ❜ ❨983❩ ❛ It was never meant to be read. ❜ ❨984❩ ❛ If I fell in the river, would you save me? ❜ ❨985❩ ❛ That was an incredibly bloody stupid thing to do. ❜ ❨986❩ ❛ I want to thank you for saving my life. I’ll be eternally grateful to you. ❜ ❨987❩ ❛ I’m very, very sorry for the terrible distress that I have caused. I’m very, very sorry. ❜ ❨988❩ ❛ Don’t call me that! – Please don’t call me that. ❜ ❨989❩ ❛ It may be the wrong decision, but fuck it, it’s mine. ❜ ❨990❩ ❛ Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer. ❜ ❨991❩ ❛ No one ever really gets used to nightmares. ❜ ❨992❩ ❛ I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. ❜ ❨993❩ ❛ Sublime is something you choke on after a shot of tequila. ❜ ❨994❩ ❛ Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. ❜ ❨995❩ ❛ Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful. ❜ ❨996❩ ❛ The ruminations are mine, let the world be yours. ❜ ❨997❩ ❛ You will fulfil a promise I made years ago but failed to keep. ❜ ❨998❩ ❛ Darkness never satisfies. Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does. ❜ ❨999❩ ❛ I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore. ❜ ❨1000❩ ❛ What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff. ❜ ❨1001❩ ❛ Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you? ❜ ❨1002❩ ❛ It’s just silent, no sound at all. It’s like something’s waiting. ❜ ❨1003❩ ❛ I guess I’m hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control. ❜ ❨1004❩ ❛ Oh and something else: – Fuck you. ❜ ❨1005❩ ❛ God I’ve never been afraid like this. ❜ ❨1006❩ ❛ I miss you. I love you. There’s no second I’ve lived that you can’t call your own. ❜ ❨1007❩ ❛ I’m so tired. Sleep’s been stalking me for too long to remember. Inevitable I suppose. ❜ ❨1008❩ ❛ Not seeing the rip doesn’t mean you automatically get to keep clear of the Hey-I’m-Bleeding part. ❜ ❨1009❩ ❛ These days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies. ❜ ❨1010❩ ❛ Yeah I know, I know. This shit’s getting ridiculous. ❜ ❨1011❩ ❛ ‘Fuck’ and 'fall for’ have very different meanings. The first one you do as much as you can. The second one you never ever, ever do. ❜ ❨1012❩ ❛ It’s a nice idea but it reeks of hope. False hope. ❜ ❨1013❩ ❛ It’s, well…one thing in two words: fucked up…very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares…very very fucked up. ❜ ❨1014❩ ❛ Do you think I could spend the night at your place?  ❜ ❨1015❩ ❛ Any fool can pray. ❜ ❨1016❩ ❛ I feel like I haven’t slept in months. My neighbours are scared of me. ❜ ❨1017❩ ❛ I’ve lost my mind? Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe I’m just really drunk. ❜ ❨1018❩ ❛ Perhaps by cleaning out my system I’ll come to a clearing where I can ease myself into peace. ❜ ❨1019❩ ❛ I should be dead. Why am I still here? ❜ ❨1020❩ ❛ Fuck if I know. Your guess is as good as mine. ❜ ❨1021❩ ❛ You are my flesh. You are my bones. I know you too well. I read you too perfectly. ❜ ❨1022❩ ❛ Not all complex problems have easy solutions. ❜ ❨1023❩ ❛ Do you believe in God? I don’t think I ever asked you that one. ❜ ❨1024❩ ❛ We all create stories to protect ourselves. ❜ ❨1025❩ ❛ Are you kidding me? This place is scary. ❜ ❨1026❩ ❛ These days the only thing that gets me outside is when I say: Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. ❜ ❨1027❩ ❛ You like that crap because it reminds you of you. ❜ ❨1028❩ ❛ You may suddenly realise things are not how you perceived them to be at all. ❜ ❨1029❩ ❛ The two hardest tests are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter. ❜ ❨1030❩ ❛ People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves. ❜ ❨1031❩ ❛ Be crazy! But learn how to be crazy without being the center of attention. Be brave enough to live different. ❜ ❨1032❩ ❛ You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. ❜ ❨1033❩ ❛ God chose you to be different. ❜ ❨1034❩ ❛ Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude? ❜ ❨1035❩ ❛ You have two choices, to control your mind or to let your mind control you. ❜ ❨1036❩ ❛ Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to. ❜ ❨1037❩ ❛ Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death?  ❜ ❨1038❩ ❛ If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem. ❜ ❨1039❩ ❛ Nothing in this world happens by chance. ❜ ❨1040❩ ❛ I want to continue living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be. ❜ ❨1041❩ ❛ Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains. ❜ ❨1042❩ ❛ Collective madness is called sanity. ❜ ❨1043❩ ❛ Consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences. ❜ ❨1044❩ ❛ You say they create their own reality, but what is reality? ❜ ❨1045❩ ❛ Many people don't allow themselves to love because there are a lot of things at risk. A lot of future and a lot of past. ❜ ❨1046❩ ❛ Death frees from the fear of dying. ❜ ❨1047❩ ❛ The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ❜ ❨1048❩ ❛ The happier people can be, the unhappier they are. ❜ ❨1049❩ ❛ Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. ❜ ❨1050❩ ❛ It's best to accept life as it really is and not as you imagined it to be. ❜ ❨1051❩ ❛ You don't seem mad at all. ❜ ❨1052❩ ❛ We’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us. ❜ ❨1053❩ ❛ You’re what you are, not what others make of you. ❜ ❨1054❩ ❛ Am I cured? ❜ ❨1055❩ ❛ Real love changes and grows with time and discovers new ways of expressing itself. ❜ ❨1056❩ ❛ A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right. Is that it? ❜ ❨1057❩ ❛ They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. ❜ ❨1058❩ ❛ I didn't know that other ‘me’s existed inside me, ‘Me’s that I could love. ❜ ❨1059❩ ❛ I have no idea what's awaiting me. ❜ ❨1060❩ ❛ What will happen when this all ends? ❜ ❨1061❩ ❛ I know that you are capable of great deeds. ❜ ❨1062❩ ❛ A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. ❜ ❨1063❩ ❛ The truth is that everyone is bored. ❜ ❨1064❩ ❛ I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. ❜ ❨1065❩ ❛ If there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love. ❜ ❨1066❩ ❛ Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for even a single moment's suffering? ❜ ❨1067❩ ❛ It's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. ❜ ❨1068❩ ❛ While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. ❜ ❨1069❩ ❛ People are more often bad than good. ❜ ❨1070❩ ❛ I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned that it can be murderous. ❜ ❨1071❩ ❛ What interests me is living and dying for what one loves. ❜ ❨1072❩ ❛ In fact, nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. ❜ ❨1073❩ ❛ Nothing in the world is worth turning one's back on what one loves. ❜ ❨1074❩ ❛ Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ❜ ❨1075❩ ❛ There are more things to admire in men then to despise. ❜ ❨1076❩ ❛ It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence. ❜ ❨1077❩ ❛ What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this? ❜ ❨1078❩ ❛ Your code of morals? What code, if I may ask? ❜ ❨1079❩ ❛ I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding anything. ❜ ❨1080❩ ❛ No doubt our love is still there, but quite simply it is unusable, heavy to carry, inert inside of us, sterile as crime or condemnation. ❜ ❨1081❩ ❛ I’m not happy to go, but one needn't be happy to make another start. ❜ ❨1082❩ ❛ I am incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that I am incapable of anything really worth while. ❜ ❨1083❩ ❛ I should have found the words to keep her with me. ❜ ❨1084❩ ❛ We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. ❜ ❨1085❩ ❛ The evil that is in the world comes out of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. ❜ ❨1086❩ ❛ There are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. ❜ ❨1087❩ ❛ The best protection against anything is a good bottle of wine. ❜ ❨1088❩ ❛ There is no peace without hope. ❜ ❨1089❩ ❛ It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment. ❜ ❨1090❩ ❛ There is always something left to love. ❜ ❨1091❩ ❛ A person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ❜ ❨1092❩ ❛ Things have a life of their own. It's simply a matter of waking up their souls. ❜ ❨1093❩ ❛ Tell me something: why are you fighting? ❜ ❨1094❩ ❛ I've come to realise only just now that I'm fighting because of pride. ❜ ❨1095❩ ❛ One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship. ❜ ❨1096❩ ❛ It's better than not knowing why you're fighting. Or fighting, like you, for something that doesn't have any meaning for anyone. ❜ ❨1097❩ ❛ Holy Mother of God! ❜ ❨1098❩ ❛ A person does not belong to a place until there is someone dead under the ground. ❜ ❨1099❩ ❛ I was born a son of a bitch and I'm going to die a son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1100❩ ❛ Bad luck doesn't have any chinks in it. ❜ ❨1101❩ ❛ I plead youth as a mitigating circumstance. ❜ ❨1102❩ ❛ Get those bad thoughts out of your head. You're going to be happy. ❜ ❨1103❩ ❛ Children inherit their parents' madness. ❜ ❨1104❩ ❛ I'll turn to ashes in here but I won't give this miserable town the pleasure of seeing me weep. ❜ ❨1105❩ ❛ You would be good in a war. Where you put your eye, you put your bullet. ❜ ❨1106❩ ❛ Men demand much more than you think. ❜ ❨1107❩ ❛ Even the craziest and most persistent love is just a temporary truth. ❜ ❨1108❩ ❛ If we’re alone you can whisper in my ear any crap you can think of. ❜ ❨1109❩ ❛ You have taken this horrible game very seriously and you have done well because you are doing your duty. ❜ ❨1110❩ ❛ We have the right to pull down your pants and give you a whipping at the first sign of disrespect. ❜ ❨1111❩ ❛ What worries me is not your shooting me, because after all, for people like us it's a natural death. ❜ ❨1112❩ ❛ What worries me is that you've ended up as bad as they are. ❜ ❨1113❩ ❛ It is characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites are satisfied. ❜ ❨1114❩ ❛ Dying is much more difficult than one imagines. ❜ ❨1115❩ ❛ If you have to go crazy, please go crazy all by yourself! ❜ ❨1116❩ ❛ We have still not had a death. ❜ ❨1117❩ ❛ How awful, the way time passes. ❜ ❨1118❩ ❛ You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house. ❜ ❨1119❩ ❛ I missed you every hour. ❜ ❨1120❩ ❛ You know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. ❜ ❨1121❩ ❛ I’ve risked my life for you. ❜ ❨1122❩ ❛ The problem with wanting is that it makes us weak. ❜ ❨1123❩ ❛ I love you, even the part of you that loved him. ❜ ❨1124❩ ❛ I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. ❜ ❨1125❩ ❛ I never really belonged anywhere. ❜ ❨1126❩ ❛ Thanks for being my best friend and making my life bearable.  ❜ ❨1127❩ ❛ Thanks for finding me. ❜ ❨1128❩ ❛ You and I are going to change the world. ❜ ❨1129❩ ❛ I’ve been waiting for you a long time. ❜ ❨1130❩ ❛ I’m not used to people trying to kill me. ❜ ❨1131❩ ❛ You’re shaking. ❜ ❨1132❩ ❛ There's nothing wrong with being a lizard. Unless you were born to be a hawk. ❜ ❨1133❩ ❛ Make me your villain. ❜ ❨1134❩ ❛ Just you and me. It’s always just you and me. ❜ ❨1135❩ ❛ Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every dumb thing I’ve said? ❜ ❨1136❩ ❛ Well, if it gets too bad, give me a signal. ❜ ❨1137❩ ❛ Did you tell him what I showed you in the dark? ❜ ❨1138❩ ❛ Did you miss me when you were gone? ❜ ❨1139❩ ❛ What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men. ❜ ❨1140❩ ❛ You’re interfering with my plan. ❜ ❨1141❩ ❛ Too much champagne? ❜ ❨1142❩ ❛ I hope you don’t expect fairness from me. It isn’t one of my specialties. ❜ ❨1143❩ ❛ There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings. Faith. ❜ ❨1144❩ ❛ All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how. ❜ ❨1145❩ ❛ What is she? She’s everything, you dumb son of a bitch. ❜ ❨1146❩ ❛ She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned. ❜ ❨1147❩ ❛ I wouldn’t make that mistake again. ❜ ❨1148❩ ❛ It’s a great honor, to save a life. You saved many. ❜ ❨1149❩ ❛ In this world, there are things you can only do alone. ❜ ❨1150❩ ❛ What seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else. ❜ ❨1151❩ ❛ If you really want to know something, you have to be willing to pay the price. ❜ ❨1152❩ ❛ Why should you be interested in me? ❜ ❨1153❩ ❛ I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times. ❜ ❨1154❩ ❛ It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. ❜ ❨1155❩ ❛ I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel. ❜ ❨1156❩ ❛ The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish. ❜ ❨1157❩ ❛ The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.  ❜ ❨1158❩ ❛ So once you're dead there's just nothing? ❜ ❨1159❩ ❛ If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality. ❜ ❨1160❩ ❛ Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action? ❜ ❨1161❩ ❛ Nobody can shake off their own shadow. ❜ ❨1162❩ ❛ The silence is so deep it hurts. ❜ ❨1163❩ ❛ I may not look it, but I can be a very patient guy. ❜ ❨1164❩ ❛ Killing time is one of my specialities. ❜ ❨1165❩ ❛ You can't fight it. ❜ ❨1166❩ ❛ Tell me something,—do you believe in reincarnation? ❜ ❨1167❩ ❛ I can’t understand nothingness. I can’t understand it and I can’t imagine it. ❜ ❨1168❩ ❛ I can hardly breathe, and my whole body wants to shrink into a corner.  ❜ ❨1169❩ ❛ I do have a few things wrong with me, but those are strictly problems I keep inside. ❜ ❨1170❩ ❛ I can't take it any more, I can't go on any more. ❜ ❨1171❩ ❛ You don't really have it together. ❜ ❨1172❩ ❛ Is it against the law for me to know it? ❜ ❨1173❩ ❛ I keep having the same dream. ❜ ❨1174❩ ❛ Are you asking because you really want an answer? ❜ ❨1175❩ ❛ I hate this! I don't want to be changed this way! ❜ ❨1176❩ ❛ No contradictions, no irony. They do everything according to numerical formulas. ❜ ❨1177❩ ❛ Want to hear the rest? If you’re not interested, I can stop. ❜ ❨1178❩ ❛ If I didn’t have these memories inside me, I would’ve snapped a long time ago. I would’ve curled up in a ditch somewhere and died. ❜ ❨1179❩ ❛ I don’t know what you’re feeling. I won’t even pretend. ❜ ❨1180❩ ❛ What are you doing here, honey? ❜ ❨1181❩ ❛ You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. ❜ ❨1182❩ ❛ You don't understand me. ❜ ❨1183❩ ❛ All wisdom ends in paradox. ❜ ❨1184❩ ❛ It is love that overthrows empire. Love that binds two hearts together, come hellfire & brimstone. ❜ ❨1185❩ ❛ I have lost my gift. ❜ ❨1186❩ ❛ Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair. ❜ ❨1187❩ ❛ The seeds of death get lost in the mess that God made us. ❜ ❨1188❩ ❛ They're just memories now. It’s time to forget. ❜ ❨1189❩ ❛ The time has to be right and the heart willing. ❜ ❨1190❩ ❛ The world, a tired performer, offers us another half-assed season. ❜ ❨1191❩ ❛ Capitalism has resulted in material well-being but spiritual bankruptcy. ❜ ❨1192❩ ❛ Grief is natural, overcoming it is a matter of choice. ❜ ❨1193❩ ❛ I want out of that decorating scheme. ❜ ❨1194❩ ❛ With most people suicide is like Russian roulette. Only one chamber has a bullet. ❜ ❨1195❩ ❛ You never get over it but you get where it doesn't bother you so much. ❜ ❨1196❩ ❛ Don't waste your time on life. ❜ ❨1197❩ ❛ I'm a teenager. I've got problems! ❜ ❨1198❩ ❛ Adolescents tend to seek love where they can find it. ❜ ❨1199❩ ❛ Obviously, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl. ❜ ❨1200❩ ❛ It was a mistake. ❜ ❨1201❩ ❛ It seemed like we were supposed to feel sorry for everything that ever happened, ever. ❜ ❨1202❩ ❛ Buffeted but not broken. ❜ ❨1203❩ ❛ Shit. What have kids got to be worried about now? ❜ ❨1204❩ ❛ If they want trouble, they should go live in Bangladesh. ❜ ❨1205❩ ❛ I can't wait until I get out of here. ❜ ❨1206❩ ❛ When she jumped she probably thought she’d fly. ❜ ❨1207❩ ❛ I do not think the patient truly meant to end her life. Her act was a cry for help. ❜ ❨1208❩ ❛ You're a stone fox. ❜ ❨1209❩ ❛ It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight. ❜ ❨1210❩ ❛ Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ❜ ❨1211❩ ❛ He broke my heart. You merely broke my life. ❜ ❨1212❩ ❛ I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is. ❜ ❨1213❩ ❛ Words without experience are meaningless. ❜ ❨1214❩ ❛ I loved you. I was a monster, but I loved you. ❜ ❨1215❩ ❛ Come just as you are. ❜ ❨1216❩ ❛ If a violin string could ache, i would be that string. ❜ ❨1217❩ ❛ Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again. ❜ ❨1218❩ ❛ What's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. ❜ ❨1219❩ ❛ Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. ❜ ❨1220❩ ❛ You took advantage of my disadvantage. ❜ ❨1221❩ ❛ I walk in a maze I cannot get out of. ❜ ❨1222❩ ❛ Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses. ❜ ❨1223❩ ❛ Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me. ❜ ❨1224❩ ❛ There is no harm in smiling. ❜ ❨1225❩ ❛ There is no point in staying here. There is no point in staying anywhere. ❜ ❨1226❩ ❛ There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child. ❜ ❨1227❩ ❛ I am so tired of being cynical. ❜ ❨1228❩ ❛ Come to live with me, and die with me, and everything with me. ❜ ❨1229❩ ❛ This is the only immortality that you and I may share. ❜ ❨1230❩ ❛ I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. ❜ ❨1231❩ ❛ I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! ❜ ❨1232❩ ❛ Years of secret suffering has taught me superhuman self-control. ❜ ❨1233❩ ❛ Solitude is corrupting me. I need company and care. ❜ ❨1234❩ ❛ I've missed you terribly. ❜ ❨1235❩ ❛ I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. ❜ ❨1236❩ ❛ It doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. ❜ ❨1237❩ ❛ What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? ❜ ❨1238❩ ❛ Nowadays you have to be a scientist if you want to be a killer. ❜ ❨1239❩ ❛ The sun climbs high in the sky, then starts down. People come, then go. ❜ ❨1240❩ ❛ Tell me, have you ever thought of killing me? ❜ ❨1241❩ ❛ I can not believe you are the same human being. ❜ ❨1242❩ ❛ Just how urgent is it? ❜ ❨1243❩ ❛ It is time for you to be going. ❜ ❨1244❩ ❛ How is it you know something like that? ❜ ❨1245❩ ❛ I don’t mind. Your mess is my mess. ❜ ❨1246❩ ❛ Everybody has one thing they do not want to lose. ❜ ❨1247❩ ❛ I’ll be late tonight, so don’t wait up for me. ❜ ❨1248❩ ❛ Nothing I’ve tried to do by myself has ever come off. ❜ ❨1249❩ ❛ I am not catching you in the middle of anything important, am I? ❜ ❨1250❩ ❛ Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die. ❜ ❨1251❩ ❛ My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year. ❜ ❨1252❩ ❛ To get irritated is to lose our way in life. ❜ ❨1253❩ ❛ A friend to kill time is a friend sublime. ❜ ❨1254❩ ❛ I don't really know if it's the right thing to do. ❜ ❨1255❩ ❛ Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it? ❜ ❨1256❩ ❛ Most of everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories. ❜ ❨1257❩ ❛ Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. ❜ ❨1258❩ ❛ You’re loads better than you think you are. ❜ ❨1259❩ ❛ You’re only half-living, the other half is still untapped somewhere. ❜ ❨1260❩ ❛ The song is over. But the melody lingers on. ❜ ❨1261❩ ❛ You are extraordinary. ❜ ❨1262❩ ❛ We tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on. ❜ ❨1263❩ ❛ It could be five years or ten years or one month. It's all the same. ❜ ❨1264❩ ❛ I’m forever realising things too late. ❜ ❨1265❩ ❛ I’m not complaining when I say my life is boring. ❜ ❨1266❩ ❛ Weakness is something that rots in the body. ❜ ❨1267❩ ❛ Coming from your mouth, it has the ring of truth, but I doubt anyone would believe me if I told them. ❜ ❨1268❩ ❛ You can't expect something unreal to last anyway, can you? ❜ ❨1269❩ ❛ A wise man does not step betwixt the beast and his meat. ❜ ❨1270❩ ❛ So, kill me. Tell the others I attacked you so you killed me. ❜ ❨1271❩ ❛ Should never have come here. ❜ ❨1272❩ ❛ Hard to guess my tastes. ❜ ❨1273❩ ❛ Can’t it wait until the morning? ❜ ❨1274❩ ❛ You’ll find temper tantrums won’t help you here. ❜ ❨1275❩ ❛ It must have taken courage to return. ❜ ❨1276❩ ❛ It all sounds grimly dystopian. ❜ ❨1277❩ ❛ I am not afraid of you! ❜ ❨1278❩ ❛ All this could be avoided! ❜ ❨1279❩ ❛ You consider me a murderer? ❜ ❨1280❩ ❛ Gross way to die. ❜ ❨1281❩ ❛ What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. ❜ ❨1282❩ ❛ My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? ❜ ❨1283❩ ❛ Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others. ❜ ❨1284❩ ❛ I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there. ❜ ❨1285❩ ❛ You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human. ❜ ❨1286❩ ❛ Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible. ❜ ❨1287❩ ❛ Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty. ❜ ❨1288❩ ❛ Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths. ❜ ❨1289❩ ❛ Dreams are all I have ever truly owned. ❜ ❨1290❩ ❛ Your version of the truth is the only thing that matters. ❜ ❨1291❩ ❛ I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. ❜ ❨1292❩ ❛ By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. ❜ ❨1293❩ ❛ The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken. ❜ ❨1294❩ ❛ Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right. ❜ ❨1295❩ ❛ The weak are meat the strong do eat. ❜ ❨1296❩ ❛ Do whatever you can't not do. ❜ ❨1297❩ ❛ What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. ❜ ❨1298❩ ❛ I remain thankful to God for all his mercies. ❜ ❨1299❩ ❛ You can maintain power over people, as long as you give them something. Rob a man of everything, and that man will no longer be in your power. ❜ ❨1300❩ ❛ Power. The ability to determine another man's luck. ❜ ❨1301❩ ❛ Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong. ❜ ❨1302❩ ❛ Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. ❜ ❨1303❩ ❛ Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions? ❜ ❨1304❩ ❛ You can’t lie to your soul. ❜ ❨1305❩ ❛ Why would I want to do a thing like that? ❜ ❨1306❩ ❛ We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. ❜ ❨1307❩ ❛ Better to make life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be. ❜ ❨1308❩ ❛ I’m not running away, I’m moving on. ❜ ❨1309❩ ❛ The reasons? There are no reasons. ❜ ❨1310❩ ❛ Some people are easier to love when you don’t have to be around them. ❜ ❨1311❩ ❛ Love does not exist. ❜ ❨1312❩ ❛ Fuck that ‘regrets’ bullshit. ❜ ❨1313❩ ❛ How does it make you feel? ❜ ❨1314❩ ❛ It’s horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone. ❜ ❨1315❩ ❛ Choose us. Choose life. ❜ ❨1316❩ ❛ You fucking knew that fucking cunt would fuck some cunt. ❜ ❨1317❩ ❛ I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. ❜ ❨1318❩ ❛ What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. ❜ ❨1319❩ ❛ You don’t have to run away.  ❜ ❨1320❩ ❛ I tried to stop because it was only causing pain. I couldn’t. ❜ ❨1321❩ ❛ I’m not going to get crushed. ❜ ❨1322❩ ❛ I love doubt in a woman. It’s nearly as sexy as determination. ❜ ❨1323❩ ❛ Take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty. ❜ ❨1324❩ ❛ You’re a mess. ❜ ❨1325❩ ❛ I know that it’s never left you alone. ❜ ❨1326❩ ❛ Are you asking me or telling me? ❜ ❨1327❩ ❛ You just get used to all the shit. ❜ ❨1328❩ ❛ You can’t afford a conscience in this life. ❜ ❨1329❩ ❛ None of us are saints and scapegoats are always handy. ❜ ❨1330❩ ❛ Doing things doesn’t hurt you; you get hurt by avoiding them. ❜ ❨1331❩ ❛ What was that? ❜ ❨1332❩ ❛ Protect me from those who wish to help us. ❜ ❨1333❩ ❛ You can’t love yourself if you want to hurt things like that. ❜ ❨1334❩ ❛ What happens when people open their hearts? ❜ ❨1335❩ ❛ Nobody likes being alone that much. ❜ ❨1336❩ ❛ I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” ❨1337❩ ❛ Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that. ❜ ❨1338❩ ❛ You need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. ❜ ❨1339❩ ❛ I want you always to remember me. ❜ ❨1340❩ ❛ Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to be hurt. ❜ ❨1341❩ ❛ What stays in your heart will stay; keep them, and what vanishes will vanish. ❜ ❨1342❩ ❛ All I want in this world is you. ❜ ❨1343❩ ❛ I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning. ❜ ❨1344❩ ❛ No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. ❜ ❨1345❩ ❛ What a terrible thing it is to wound someone you really care for and to do it so unconsciously. ❜ ❨1346❩ ❛ If you’re in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark. ❜ ❨1347❩ ❛ I’ve had enough hurt already in my life. More than enough. Now I want to be happy. ❜ ❨1348❩ ❛ People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die. ❜ ❨1349❩ ❛ Stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they’re supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course. ❜ ❨1350❩ ❛ When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you’re in big trouble. ❜ ❨1351❩ ❛ When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. ❜ ❨1352❩ ❛ If I have left a wound inside you, it is not just your wound but mine as well. ❜ ❨1353❩ ❛ Hey, what is it with you? Why are you so spaced out? You still haven’t answered me. ❜ ❨1354❩ ❛ People are strange when you’re a stranger. ❜ ❨1355❩ ❛ The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living. ❜ ❨1356❩ ❛ You don’t get it, do you? ❜ ❨1357❩ ❛ I am a flawed human being - a far more flawed human being than you ❨1358❩ realise. ❜ ❨1359❩ ❛ At least let me know whether or not I hurt you. ❜ ❨1360❩ ❛ All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. ❜ ❨1361❩ ❛ I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die. ❜ ❨1362❩ ❛ So I’m not crazy after all! ❜ ❨1363❩ ❛ I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. ❜ ❨1364❩ ❛ Will you wait for me forever? ❜ ❨1365❩ ❛ I don’t want our relationship to end like this. ❜ ❨1366❩ ❛ When am I going to be able to talk to you? I want you to tell me that much, at least. ❜ ❨1367❩ ❛ It hurts not being able to see you. ❜ ❨1368❩ ❛ I’m not totally mad at you. I’m just sad. ❜ ❨1369❩ ❛ The world is an inherently unfair place. ❜ ❨1370❩ ❛ Life frightens me sometimes. I don’t happen to take that as the premise for everything else though. ❜ ❨1371❩ ❛ I’m a real bargain, don’t you think? If you don’t take me, I’ll end up going somewhere else. ❜ ❨1372❩ ❛ We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning. ❜ ❨1373❩ ❛ Don’t you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don’t know a soul? ❜ ❨1374❩ ❛ You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already. ❜ ❨1375❩ ❛ He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. ❜ ❨1376❩ ❛ If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself. ❜ ❨1377❩ ❛ We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ❜ ❨1378❩ ❛ Until they become conscious they will never rebel. ❜ ❨1379❩ ❛ Power is not a means; it is an end. ❜ ❨1380❩ ❛ They are not interested in the good of others; they are interested solely in power, pure power. ❜ ❨1381❩ ❛ Now you begin to understand me. ❜ ❨1382❩ ❛ In the face of pain there are no heroes. ❜ ❨1383❩ ❛ Big Brother is watching you. ❜ ❨1384❩ ❛ Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. ❜ ❨1385❩ ❛ It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. ❜ ❨1386❩ ❛ The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better. ❜ ❨1387❩ ❛ Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind. ❜ ❨1388❩ ❛ Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. ❜ ❨1389❩ ❛ We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them. ❜ ❨1390❩ ❛ How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? ❜ ❨1391❩ ❛ You must try harder. ❜ ❨1392❩ ❛ Confession is not betrayal. ❜ ❨1393❩ ❛ What you say or do doesn’t matter; only feelings matter. ❜ ❨1394❩ ❛ If they could make me stop loving you —- that would be the real betrayal. ❜ ❨1395❩ ❛ Of pain you can wish only one thing: that it should stop. ❜ ❨1396❩ ❛ To die hating them, that will be freedom. ❜ ❨1397❩ ❛ No one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. ❜ ❨1398❩ ❛ What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself? ❜ ❨1399❩ ❛ To keep them in control is not difficult. ❜ ❨1400❩ ❛ So long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed. ❜ ❨1401❩ ❛ The consequences of every act are included in the act itself. ❜ ❨1402❩ ❛ The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. ❜ ❨1403❩ ❛ Stupidity is as necessary as intelligence, and as difficult to attain. ❜ ❨1404❩ ❛ I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones. ❜ ❨1405❩ ❛ The past is dead, the future is unimaginable. ❜ ❨1406❩ ❛ You know the answer already. Everyone knows it. ❜ ❨1407❩ ❛ You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care is yourself. ❜ ❨1408❩ ❛ It is not easy to become sane. ❜ ❨1409❩ ❛ No emotion is pure anymore, because everything is mixed up with fear and hatred. ❜ ❨1410❩ ❛ They say that time heals all things —- they say you can always forget. ❜ ❨1411❩ ❛ The object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war. ❜ ❨1412❩ ❛ I sold you and you sold me. ❜ ❨1413❩ ❛ You do not exist. ❜ ❨1414❩ ❛ How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. ❜ ❨1415❩ ❛ Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? ❜ ❨1416❩ ❛ Everything else we shall destroy – everything. ❜ ❨1417❩ ❛ Two and two makes five. ❜ ❨1418❩ ❛ Facts, at any rate, can not be kept hidden. ❜ ❨1419❩ ❛ The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. ❜ ❨1420❩ ❛ So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing. ❜ ❨1421❩ ❛ If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then? ❜ ❨1422❩ ❛ The lie became the truth. ❜ ❨1423❩ ❛ It is like swimming against a current that sweeps you backwards however hard you struggle. ❜ ❨1424❩ ❛ Turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. ❜ ❨1425❩ ❛ It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything. ❜ ❨1426❩ ❛ I don’t want to die without any scars. ❜ ❨1427❩ ❛ This is your life and it’s ending one moment at a time. ❜ ❨1428❩ ❛ You know how they say you only hurt the ones you love? Well, it works both ways. ❜ ❨1429❩ ❛ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. ❜ ❨1430❩ ❛ You are not special. ❜ ❨1431❩ ❛ You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. ❜ ❨1432❩ ❛ The things you used to own, now they own you. ❜ ❨1433❩ ❛ Today is the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. ❜ ❨1434❩ ❛ Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves. ❜ ❨1435❩ ❛ Only after disaster can we be resurrected. ❜ ❨1436❩ ❛ Everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. ❜ ❨1437❩ ❛ We’ve all been raised believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. ❜ ❨1438❩ ❛ Don’t you have other things to do? ❜ ❨1439❩ ❛ Prove you’re alive. If you don’t claim your humanity you will become a statistic. ❜ ❨1440❩ ❛ You have been warned. ❜ ❨1441❩ ❛ If you don’t know what you want, you end up with a lot you don’t. ❜ ❨1442❩ ❛ It’s not love or anything, but I think I like you, too. ❜ ❨1443❩ ❛ If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? ❜ ❨1444❩ ❛ Why did I cause so much pain? ❜ ❨1445❩ ❛ The lower you fall, the higher you’ll fly. ❜ ❨1446❩ ❛ Maybe self-improvement isn’t the answer, maybe self-destruction is the answer. ❜ ❨1447❩ ❛ May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect. ❜ ❨1448❩ ❛ Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head. ❜ ❨1449❩ ❛ We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. ❜ ❨1450❩ ❛ The girl is infectious human waste. ❜ ❨1451❩ ❛ I want to destroy everything beautiful I’ll never have. ❜ ❨1452❩ ❛ On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ❜ ❨1453❩ ❛ If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? ❜ ❨1454❩ ❛ It is like you’re never really awake; but you’re never really asleep. ❜ ❨1455❩ ❛ Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave. ❜ ❨1456❩ ❛ A moment is the most you could ever expect from perfection. ❜ ❨1457❩ ❛ The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on. ❜ ❨1458❩ ❛ You have to give up! ❜ ❨1459❩ ❛ Reject the basic assumptions of civilisation, especially the importance of material possessions. ❜ ❨1460❩ ❛ Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing. ❜ ❨1461❩ ❛ You have to realise that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless. ❜ ❨1462❩ ❛ A tiger can smile. A snake will say it loves you. ❜ ❨1463❩ ❛ Lies make us evil. ❜ ❨1464❩ ❛ If you died right now, how would you feel about your life? ❜ ❨1465❩ ❛ You always kill the one you love. ❜ ❨1466❩ ❛ Maybe we should always assume the worst. ❜ ❨1467❩ ❛ Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains. ❜ ❨1468❩ ❛ Which is worse? Hell or nothing? ❜ ❨1469❩ ❛ A minute of perfection is worth the effort. ❜ ❨1470❩ ❛ You’re going to die, tonight. You might die in one second or in one hour, you decide. ❜ ❨1471❩ ❛ Lie to me. Tell me the first thing off the top of your head. Make something up. ❜ ❨1472❩ ❛ I don’t give a shit. I have a gun. ❜ ❨1473❩ ❛ I know who you are. I know where you live. ❜ ❨1474❩ ❛ Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your life. ❜ ❨1475❩ ❛ My philosophy of life is that I can die at any moment. And the tragedy of my life is that I do not. ❜ ❨1476❩ ❛ Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything and nothing can touch you. ❜ ❨1477❩ ❛ There are a lot of things we don’t want to know about the people we love. ❜ ❨1478❩ ❛ We just had a near-life experience. ❜ ❨1479❩ ❛ If people think you are dying, they give you their full attention. They listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. ❜ ❨1480❩ ❛ I am nothing, and not even that. ❜ ❨1481❩ ❛ This isn’t really death. —- We’ll be legends. We won’t grow old. ❜ ❨1482❩ ❛ Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go. ❜ ❨1483❩ ❛ The amazing miracle of death, when one second you’re walking and talking, and the next second you’re an object. ❜ ❨1484❩ ❛ Only if we’re caught and punished can we be saved. ❜ ❨1485❩ ❛ I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one. ❜ ❨1486❩ ❛ Dreams are like that: they go in and out of memories and scenes, but they're never real. They're never real, and I hate them because they aren't. ❜ ❨1487❩ ❛ Power isn’t control at all — power is strength, and giving that strength to others. ❜ ❨1488❩ ❛ A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger. ❜ ❨1489❩ ❛ A leader is someone willing to give his strength to others that they may have the strength to stand on their own. ❜ ❨1490❩ ❛ In the end, we are alone. ❜ ❨1491❩ ❛ It is like a piece of my soul is lost, empty. ❜ ❨1492❩ ❛ If my life on Earth must end, let it end with a promise. Let it end with hope. ❜ ❨1493❩ ❛ Sorry? Sorry isn't enough. ❜ ❨1494❩ ❛ Every single thing I ever loved is beyond my reach now. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I ever was. ❜ ❨1495❩ ❛ Will you stay with me? ❜ ❨1496❩ ❛ A leader doesn't make pawns - he makes people. ❜ ❨1497❩ ❛ Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. ❜ ❨1498❩ ❛ It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. ❜ ❨1499❩ ❛ There is nothing between us but rain. There is nothing between us at all. ❜ ❨1500❩ ❛ I like a little chaos. ❜

[lovelytaes-blog]

colours: epilogue - kth

pairings: singledad!taehyung x artist!reader

synopsis: when you meet a little girl at a park by chance, who would've thought that you'd be falling in love with the man who had the exact same boxy smile as her in such little time?

genre: angst, fluff, smut (18+); strangers to lovers

warning(s): fluff, domestic lovin', unprotected sex(pls be safe), face-sitting, love making, biting, slight nipple play, oral sex (f.&m.receiving), praise kink.

word count: 9.1k

↳ series masterlist

3 years later…

“What about this?” Taehyung asks while lifting up a paint set, threading his fingers through his now chocolate coloured hair; just last month Taehyung had decided to go for a chocolate colour, rather than keeping his golden blonde hair—which you were a little sad about, but this hair colour suited him too.

Was there really a hair colour or style that your boyfriend couldn’t pull off?

“Oouu!” You squealed coming closer to him and examining his paint selection, giving him a thumbs up you placed it into your basket. Your eyes scanned the aisles of the store, trying to find the right paintbrush set that you found online at your normal arts and crafts store, but unfortunately they were out of stock at that particular place; so, Taehyung and you had decided to stop by this store in hopes to find the perfect gift for the little girl.

Aera’s 6th birthday party was approaching quickly, and just like the past three years, both you and Taehyung are on a time crunch. Lately the two of you have been super busy with work; you with art galleries and exhibitions, and Taehyung with meetings with other designer brands to prepare for their 2024 Spring collection release dates. So, here you two were, just a week away from Aera’s 6th birthday and struggling to find her the perfect gift. Every year it gets harder to buy her something—Taehyung being the parent that needs to top the gifts from the previous year, it becomes quite challenging to continuously search for the best gift. So, this year, you decided that since Aera has been spending tons of time with you in your studio, you’ve noticed how much she truly enjoys painting on canvases with your supplies—and she was damn good at it too. Of course, with her still being so young, she was no Leonardo Da Vinci, but she sure knew how to use a paintbrush, she was arguably better than any other five-year-old you had ever seen. She really has an eye for the arts, you recalled the time that you went on vacation with her and Taehyung to Japan on one of his work trips, and you two spent the day at the art museum; she was telling you how she learned some new colours by watching old Bob Ross videos, where she shocked you by pointing out the difference between titanium white and zinc white—to which, you being a professional artist, couldn’t even tell the difference. But that trip definitely opened your eyes, Taehyung’s too, on how talented Aera really is in terms of painting and art.

“I found it!” You shrieked, bolting towards the last paintbrush set that you had been looking for. Stumbling over your own feet, and Taehyung snickering behind you, you snatch the very last paintbrush set, fist pumping in the air at your victory, and tossing it into the basket.

“Wow,” Taehyung breathed out while he trailed behind you, “I can’t believe that it took us this long to find all those supplies.”

You snorted, setting the basket down and scanning each item at the self check out, “Maybe we wouldn’t have been so stressed out if we had started this sooner.” The two of you laughed at the thought as you continued to pay for the items.

“Guess it’s what happens with being so busy.” Taehyung huffed out running his fingers through his hair, “But we’ve been making it work for the past three years, so we’re doing something right, right?”

Smiling up at him, you grabbed his hand, interlacing your fingers and heading for the exit, “Yeah, we are.”

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

“Have you and Tae talked about moving in together?” Mi-ha asked with a mouthful of noodles.

“Yeah, it’s been like what? Three years now?” Haru chimes in.

It was now Wednesday; you and the girls were finally able to take time out of your busy schedules to set aside a full day together to catch up and hang out without any kids, boyfriends, and husbands. It was nice to finally have some girl time after being swamped with work, watching Aera when Tae was away for business, and other housekeeping things that just got in the way.

“Yeah—about two and half years, coming up onto three.” You hummed, taking a sip of water, “I guess I never really thought about it…”

That wasn’t a complete lie. Both you and Taehyung have talked about moving in with each other before; you’d sell your apartment and stay with him and Aera, of course residing in his bedroom. But that was it, really. You both hadn’t gone further in depth in actually moving in, especially with how busy you both have been for the past few years of being together. However, you practically lived with Taehyung anyways; around your second year together, he had cleared out a portion of his closet for you to keep some clothes there for when you stay over. It wasn’t too often, most times you’d stay over Friday night and then take Aera with you to your art classes for 9, while Tae stayed in bed, then you two would come back with breakfast for him.

“Hey, can I ask you something? I don’t really know if it’d offend you… But I’m curious.” Seung asks while putting a dumpling on her plate. You looked around the table to find that each of the girls had their eyes trained on their plates of food, eating quietly.

“Uhm… Sure?” You respond, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the quietness around the table.

“Does Aera still see Isla?” Seung asks, now staring at you with a questioning look. You did, in fact, tell them about your encounter with Isla and how you had offered her to continue to somewhat be in Aera’s life—they thought you were brave for that. They were worried that you’d feel like you were intruding on their family by being in the picture while Isla was too; but you really couldn’t feel it in that way. The way you had seen Isla interact with Taehyung that day—she wasn’t malicious at all, she definitely was not your typical baby mama ex-girlfriend story, Isla wasn’t an awful person.

“No, not really.” You say, “I think she appreciated that offer, to try and be in Aera’s life, but a year after that conversation, Isla sent us the same documents, all signed, and told us that her and her fiancé are moving to America… And that she wants Taehyung and Aera to have a fresh start with me… So…” You trailed off, shifting uncomfortably in your seat while you waited for the girls to respond.

“Whoa.”

“What?”

“Damn—she really just… left?”

You nodded, “Yeah… It came as a shock to us too, she seemed like she really wanted to co-parent or whatever, but I guess not?”

“And what about Aera? Does she ever ask about her?” Hyuna questions.

You shook your head, “No, and she doesn’t ask Taehyung where her mom is… In fact,” You paused, “Aera doesn’t ask for her mom at all? I remember that day at Yoon-ji’s birthday, a few years ago, and Aera told me that they went to see her mom… But like, that was the first and last time I ever heard her say the word.”

“Hm… I mean, is that really an issue?” Sarang asks gently, “Isla wasn’t ever around anyways.” The rest of the girls nodded. You pursed your lips.

“I guess not, but I still feel bad I guess.” You shrugged reaching over and stuffing your mouth with a dumpling.

“You shouldn’t,” Rae says, reaching over to clasp your shoulder with her hand, “You’re doing a fine job with helping Taehyung raise her, Y/n. Truly, they’re both so lucky to have you.” You blushed at her words, shaking your head, and waving a hand.

“Me? N-no. I’m just loving them both like they deserve; you can’t love just one of them, they come together.” You proceeded to reach for another dumpling, popping it into your mouth.

However, you didn’t notice the rest of the girls admiring you, thinking the same things. You were younger than them, at 25 years old now, and still as smitten over Taehyung and Aera as you were when you had first met them at 22. They were glad that someone loved their friend and his daughter as much as you did—truly, they were grateful for you and all that you’ve done for Taehyung. They stared at each other as they watched their younger sister—something they had always thought of you—happily chewing on another dumpling that you had popped into your mouth, smiling contently that they have gained another amazing female into their friend group, an amazing girl that had mend the heart of their long-time friend.

“What?” You asked them with your mouth full and curious eyes, the rest of the girls giggled and waved in dismissal.

“We’re just grateful that you’re in our lives.” Haru states with a grin. You suddenly feel a wave of contentment, your heart leaps in your chest that these girls were grateful for you; because you were just as grateful for them, you’ve always had Mi-ha, and you will always love her, but now that you were surrounded by so much love from the others, you were feeling choked up and overwhelmed with the tenderness that filled the air of the room.

“Yeah…” You grinned, “I am too.”

“Anyone know what the boys are up to today?”

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

“Have you figured out when you’re gonna propose?” Namjoon asks while pulling Yoon-ji’s hair up into a ponytail.

The boys were all currently at Haru and Jungkook’s house, watching the kids while their women were out together. The boys never minded spending time together with their kids, if anything they enjoyed their daddy time with them. It still baffles their minds that they’ve all been friends for so long and now they were parents together; it was almost like yesterday they were in college and rioting around like the rowdy boys they were.

“Yeah, it’s been, like what? Three years?” Jungkook asks while snuggling a sleeping Youngji into his chest.

“Two and half, almost three,” Taehyung corrects, tilting his head back to finish the rest of his water before placing the cup back on the table, “but, yeah—three.”

“Are you gonna?”

Taehyung nods, “Yeah—I think I am.” For the past six months, Taehyung had been dropping subtle hints, that you thankfully haven’t picked up on even though they were the most obvious hints any one has ever heard. Every time the three of you went out, he would always point out a bunch of engagement rings, asking which ones you liked and what you didn’t; he’d ask you what kind of diamond cut you’d want and would ask you to try on the rings he selected to ensure your ring size. Very obvious things that definitely indicated that he was going to propose sometime soon—but you just… Didn’t pick up on it. It was almost comedic to Taehyung, you were such a bright and intelligent woman, but you couldn’t even tell that your own boyfriend was going to propose to you.

“I was planning to do it around New Year’s.” Taehyung concludes clasping his hands in his lap, earning loud cheering from the boys, before Jungkook loudly shushes them, glaring hard at the boys while gesturing to the sleeping five-year-old in his arms.

“That’s damn cute,” Yoongi smirks, “you nervous?”

Taehyung was extremely nervous.

He couldn’t understand why because he knows you. You would say yes in a heartbeat, coming up onto your third year together, he knows for certain that you’d say yes. He was more so nervous about Aera’s reaction. He wasn’t sure if she’d be weirded out by it, or if she even understood what the term marriage even means, but he still felt the anxiety that resides inside him; it’s a big step in your relationship, and he just wanted it all to be perfect. He knows that he loves you, you love him; Aera loves you, and you love her. So, really, what’s there to be worried about?

“Kinda?” Taehyung admits with a sigh, “I-I just don’t wanna fuck things up, yenno?” Licking his lips and staring at the ground, “I know that I shouldn’t be because it’s Y/n. She’s literally amazing and I know she loves me, loves Aera too if not more than me, but I think I’m more worried about Aera? She knows that Y/n and I are together, romantically speaking, but I don’t know if she really understands that? Or if she even realizes that Y/n’s not her biological mom?”

Jin sighs, turning his body towards the younger man, “But does that matter if Y/n isn’t the woman that gave birth to her? She’s literally been with you both since Aera was three—while Aera’s actual mom walked out on you, tried to come back in, but then walked right back out.” Jin points out, now leaning forward, “and I don’t know about you, but Y/n sure as hell is more of a mother figure to Aera than Isla ever was.”

“Yeah, Tae,” Hobi agrees, “I’m sure when the time is right, you’ll be able to explain it to her how Y/n is her step-mom. And even then, she really deserves that, that mom title… She really did do a lot for you guys in terms of giving you both the love and care you guys deserve.”

Taehyung deflates rubbing his face, “Yeah, I know… I-“ He pauses, “I really love her guys… She’s seriously it for me.”

Jimin whistles, immediately throwing his arms around his best friend, “Guys! She’s done it! Y/nie made our Taehyungie believe in love again!”

Tae shoves Jimin off chuckling, “Quit it, I’ve always been in love with her, we’ve been together for like three years, obviously I’ve been in love.”

“Ha,” Namjoon chuckles, watching Yoon-ji running around the living area with Mujin chasing her, while Ji-hoon and Yuna trailing behind them, “It’s seriously so nice to see you truly happy!”

“Yah! You were so miserable some days that it was so hard to enjoy our time together.” Yoongi butts in clicking his tongue.

“Says you,” Hobi hissed at their older friend, “You’re literally mean and miserable to everyone all the time!”

“Hobi-hyung, relax, will you? I don’t think hyung meant it maliciously.” Jimin interrupts, bouncing Soomi on his leg as he watched with a hidden smirk at their older friends arguing with each other. Not that, that was out of the ordinary for Yoongi and Hobi.

“Well, I will relax when Hobi stops attacking me.” Yoongi interrupts before Hobi could counter, his arms crossed across his broad chest while he smirks teasingly at Hobi, knowing full well that he was getting on the younger friend’s nerves. Through the years of their friendship, it became apparent that Yoongi enjoyed teasing Hoseok because he simply enjoys seeing him flustered and not his usual bubbly self.

“Was I—” Hobi turns to Namjoon and Taehyung who were already in fits of giggles, while Jin was snickering into his hand to avoid the wrath of Jung Hoseok, as they watch his face contort in anger and confusion, “How am I even attacking you if what I’m saying is true!”

“Okay, rela—”

“Doesn’t mean you need to throw it in my face, I’ll have you know, I’m a joy to have around, thank you very much!”

“I never even—Did I say that? Did I say that Yoongi-hyung wasn’t fun to be around? I literally just—"

“Can you guys shut up!” Jungkook yells, covering his son’s ears, “For the love of fuck, I just put him to sleep, can you please keep your damn voices down?”

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

“Jagi! Have you seen my tie?”

It was now Aera’s birthday. The last two weeks haven’t been as hectic as you thought that it would be. You were still running around figuring out what kind of cake she wanted, the catering (which just ended up being Jin and Yoongi offering to cook for the weekend), and of course, the desserts that Aera wanted to snack on after the initial party. You and Taehyung have decided to get her cake made at Taehyung’s favorite cookie shop (He insisted that Aera wants a cookie cake, but you were slightly convinced that the cake was really for him—but he tried to convince you otherwise…)

“Uhmm, check the bathroom?” You called out as you finished putting Aera’s hair in little space buns with a smile, “There all done! C’mon, let’s go see if your dad found his tie.” The two of you giggled, making your way to Taehyung’s room from Aera’s, only to be greeted with a calmer looking Tae, who was quickly tying his tie and adjusting it to his liking.

“Daddy, you look so handsome!”

It never failed to amaze you at how great Aera’s speech is. At 6 (as of today), her speech has improved tremendously that it made you nostalgic whenever you remember her having a hard time pronouncing her ‘Ls’, along with her having trouble remembering how to pronounce certain words.

“Ah,” Taehyung spins around quickly scooping up his not-so-little girl into his strong arms and spinning her around, “Thank you, flower—don’t you look super pretty for your special day?” Taehyung grumbles out, smothering Aera in kisses, while she squeals.

This was the sight that you could never get tired of seeing. Day in and day out, the amount of love Tae shows Aera warms your heart every time; he is such an amazing dad, so understanding, so loving, so patient. Anyone who walks past you three on the streets gushes at how in love Taehyung is with his daughter—

“Daddy, stop!” Aera screeches pushing Taehyung’s face with both her hands, “I’m not a baby anymore! I am six!”

“Excuse me?” Taehyung’s laughter stops abruptly as he stared dumbfounded at the little girl in his arms, “Listen here, missy,” You could hear the light teasing in his voice; however, you knew that he was just trying to mask his utter shock at Aera’s choice of words.

“You, Kim Aera, still, and will always be my little girl. No ifs, ands, or buts, my flower.” He boops her nose with his index finger, chuckling.

“Alrighty, miss not-so-little Aera, I think your Aunties and Uncles, and your cousins are all waiting on you Miss birthday girl.” You interrupted, while Aera wiggles out of her dad’s grasp and bolts out of the room, her feet thumping as she makes her way down the stairs.

“Where did the time go?” Taehyung breathes out, now watching the opened door, “Did you hear her, Y/n? “I’m not a baby anymore, I am six!” Pfft, the nerve of that child.” Taehyung mocks crossing his arms and pouting, “You raise a child for six years and she thinks that she doesn’t need you anymore the minute she turns six… Six, Y/n! She can’t even drive! Where is she gonna go!”

You stifled your laughs, wrapping your arms around your very upset boyfriend, “Oh, Tae, relax will you? You’re so sensitive—”

“Me? Sensitive? I’m not—”

“Okay, Mr. I’m-not-sensitive-but-I-actually-am,” You mocked leading him towards the door, “We’ve got guests to entertain, mouths to feed, and candles to blow.” You usher him out of your shared room.

“I know what you can blow—”

“Taehyung, if you’re about to say what I think you’re about to say, so help me God—”

“—my big dick.”

“—I fucking can’t with you.”

You smack the back of Taehyung’s head as the two of you stumble down the stairs, only for your ears to greet the sound of little feet running around Taehyung’s house, the laughter of your friends, and the quiet playing of music in the background. Aera had insisted that on her birthday, she wanted you to play some of your old music that you listened to, which all consisted of old r&b, rap, hip hop, and other genres. You had to make sure that you played the clean versions of each song, for obvious reasons. Right now, an old song by Ja Rule and JLO was softly plaything through the surround-sound system that Taehyung had gotten installed two years ago for his 26th birthday, since he wanted to be able to have, and you quote, bumpin’ tunes all night long.

Needless to say, the tunes weren’t the only things, bumpin’, that night.

“Finally.” A presence finds its way beside you, only for you to see Mi-ha smiling, “Were you two busy or something?”

Smacking Mi-ha’s arm gently, “Ew,” You scrunch your face, “Mi-ha, that’s gross. You guys are all here!”

“Excuse me?” Taehyung gasps beside you, “I know that my girlfriend did not just say ‘ew’ to the thought of me fuc—”

“I swear to fuck, Taehyung if you even finish that sentence.” You hissed pointing a finger at him.

Mi-ha cackles beside you, “She says ‘ew’, knowing damn well that on our annual camping trip you and Tae were busy fu—”

“Okay, why is everyone attacking me today?” You wailed, your shoulders slumping, “It’s Aera’s birthday, guys. Can we please keep it PG? And can we please keep our sex life quiet?” You glared at Taehyung who was sheepishly looking away, finding the pink and purple balloons that were decorating his living room rather interesting.

“Hyung!” Taehyung bolts from your eyes and rushes towards Yoongi who had just walked in with a plate full of food, that he probably made on the grill outside. Trailing behind him, Jin walks in with two more plates of roasted vegetables, his twins running around his legs, giggling.

“Where do you want these?” Yoongi asks, while he idly stands in the middle of the living room, Taehyung points towards his kitchen and the three of them head over. Jin and Yoongi greeted you with smiles while they walked passed you, and Taehyung quickly kisses your cheek, in attempts to soothe out your glare that quickly dispersed at his cute gesture.

“Auntie Y/n?” Aera pats your thighs as she glances up at you with a grin, “May I go to Auntie Rae’s and Uncle Hobi’s tonight? Muji wants to show me the new switch game he got! I think Nari, the twins, and Eonnie are going over too!”

“Hm…” You hummed, pretending to be deep in thought, “Did Aunty Rae ask you?”

Aera nods with a smile.

“Do you really wanna go?”

Aera nods again.

“How about you go ask your dad, he can’t say no to you, sweets.” You suggest. There were times that Aera would ask you for things, ever since she was three. She’d come to you more often than her dad sometimes, whether she wanted sweets, salty snacks, or a new marker from the arts store. However, you and Taehyung had set some ground rules ever since the two of you had become official. For starters, you knew your place. You were not Aera’s actual parent, and you were okay with that. Therefore, you weren’t allowed to scold her or get angry at her in the same way Taehyung could—simply because that was his daughter. You also felt as if it wasn’t your place to scold her either; you also weren’t sure if Taehyung knew that you knew that Aera wanted to start calling you mom. Ever since that night, Aera hasn’t brought up the idea and neither did you nor Taehyung. You didn’t want to sway Aera, feeling that if she decides to call you mom you wanted it to be on her accord—not because you wanted her to, or Taehyung wanted her to, but because you wanted Aera to truly see you as a mother figure. You weren’t in a rush for her to label you either; you and Aera’s relationship was doing great, you really didn’t mind her calling you Auntie.

So deep in your thoughts, you didn’t hear Taehyung exit his kitchen to find you.

“Ask daddy what?” Taehyung hums behind you, snaking his arms around your waist, kissing your temple.

“May I spend the night at Aunty Rae’s and Uncle Hobi’s? Everyone’s going!” Aera pouts—the pout that she knows works fairly well with Taehyung, the pout he literally cannot say no to.

“Hm…” Taehyung teasingly hums, “Do you really want to go?”

Aera nods excitedly, “Yes, please!”

“And will you do everything your Uncle Hobi and Aunty Rae says?”

“Yup!”

“Even when daddy tells Uncle Hobi bedtime is at 8?”

“Yes…” Aera quietly says, nodding her head.

“Did you ask Aunty Y/n?”

Your eyes widen, “Hey, no,” You put your arms up at you stare that the two identical Kim’s, “Don’t bring me into this, you’re her dad.”

What came out of Aera’s mouth next made your heart almost thump out of your chest.

“But you’re my mom!” She whines, “and mom said to ask you!”

Both you and Taehyung were stunned to hear the m-word leave Aera’s mouth—sure you’ve heard it before when Taehyung wasn’t around, but you were sure it was like, a slip of the tongue—but here Aera was, dropping the m-bomb in front her dad, so casually too.

“I—wha—” You sputter out as you froze, your brain short circuiting.

“Aera—” Taehyung begins, but he gets interrupted by Jin calling everyone to eat. Aera smiles at the two of you before barreling into your legs and hugging your legs.

“Yay! Thanks guys!”

Leaving both you and Taehyung stunned at the little girl, who didn’t realize what she had just done to your heart.

══════ ∘◦❀◦∘ ══════

You plopped yourself in bed beside Taehyung, who was already on his side scrolling on his phone lazily.

The party was well over 3 hours ago, but it took both you and Taehyung at least 2 hours to clean up everything, tuck away the balloons, put away the dishes, dusting, sweeping; and now, you were finally done. Taehyung had opted to do the upstairs and going over to Hobi and Rae’s house, an hour after Aera had initially left, to bring her the toothbrush she had left behind. Thankfully Hobi and Rae lived just ten minutes away from your home. It was nice that all the boys were within the same area—you weren’t sure if that was planned, but you were thankful for it, nonetheless. Often times, Aera spent the day with Haru and Jungkook if you and Taehyung had to run errands that would bore her, or she simply didn’t feel like going. Luckily for the two of you, your friends live just a few blocks down for yours, so after the errands, or whatever event was happening, it wasn’t uncommon to shortly find yourselves there after, just gathering together with your families for the evening.

“Are we just going to ignore the fact that Aera just called you mom?” Taehyung questions, nonchalantly. You paused before turning to face him.

“I didn’t—” You uttered out, “Are you mad?”

“Huh?” Taehyung peers up from his phone, locking it and placing it by his bedside table, “Jagi,” His voice is soft, arms encircling around your waist, tugging you closer to him, “why would I be mad?” He chuckles, nuzzling into your hair, peppering featherlike kisses against you.

You melted against his touch, pressing yourself to him and relishing in the warmth of him, “I don’t know…” You sighed, “I-I didn’t want to overstep any of the boundaries, I’m not really her mom.” You frowned. You never told anyone, maybe other than Mi-ha, but sometimes you had wished that you had met Taehyung earlier, you had wished that you attended more of Yoon-ji’s birthday parties that way maybe you would’ve met Taehyung sooner, maybe you should’ve went to the cookie place more, would you have met Taehyung there by chance? If all of these scenarios were to happen, would Aera have really been yours then?

“Hey,” Taehyung whispers, his eyes filled with worry, he brushes his fingers across your eyes wiping away the tears that you didn’t even realize were falling, “hey, hey…” He soothes gently, stroking your cheeks and angling your face up, “Why are you crying, pretty girl? What’s gotten you so upset?” He waits as you breath in and out, timing your breathing with his, while he just lays with you, the pads of his thumbs soothing your cheeks.

“I’m-“ You hiccupped, “sorry, I don’t know. I just-“ Taehyung waits patiently, humming quietly to relax you, “Sometimes, I wonder if I had attended more of Yoon-ji’s parties where you all were invited, would I have met you sooner? Would we be where we are now, together? Would Aera have really been mine?”

Taehyung’s heart swelled at the sight of you so upset over something as insignificant as you not being the birth mother of his child. To him, Aera is yours as much as she is his, he’s always thought that, even when the two of you had just begun dating—maybe even earlier, but regardless; in his eyes, you are Aera’s mother—always has, always will be. He can feel his heart breaking as he watches another tear slip from your eyes, brushing it away again before giving you a smile.

“Is this what you think of?” He asks gently, to which you shyly nod, suddenly feeling small under his gaze. Taehyung chuckles before pressing his forehead to yours and capturing your lips in his with a sweet kiss.

“Y/n,” He pulls away staring at you, “jagi, you’re so damn cute.” He chortles out, peppering your unamused face with plenty of kisses.

“I’m glad my biggest insecurity is entertaining to you,” You scoffed, angrily wiping your eyes to rid yourself of your stupid tears.

“Hey, no,” Taehyung sighs, “I’m not laughing because of that…” You stare at him with narrowed eyes as you waited for him to continue, “I’m laughing because Aera is yours, baby.”

Taehyung carefully watches your eyebrows furrow in confusion before sighing, “We’ve been together for about three years, Y/n. And for a long time, I’ve already considered you as Aera’s mother. You’ve been what the two of us needed—someone who loves the both of us, not just me, but Aera too. You give us the world and we are both so, so grateful for everything you do for us.” You feel your eyes welling up with more tears, watching Taehyung’s eyes water too, “You may not have given her half of your chromosomes, or share the same DNA as her,” You both giggle at his attempts to lighten up the mood with some scientific humor, “or the one to have pushed her out of your vagina—”

“Okay, it was cute until you said that.” You mumbled, shoving him gently away from you, only for him to coil back briefly and tugging you towards him again.

“As I was saying,” He teased, “You may not biologically be her mother, but what’s important is that in my eyes—and hers—is that she sees you as a mother, and you know she does… You heard her today, and that is enough. You’re enough, for me, for her, for us.”

With that Taehyung kisses you tenderly, so full of love, want, need. And you projected it back. You love Taehyung, that you were certain of, you love him, you love Aera, you love the family you have been apart of for three years. Your heart is full, so full of happiness, love, and everything that words can’t describe; you were simply content with life. Life with him, life with them, life in general. And absolutely nothing can ruin this.

“Baby,” Taehyung pulls away, his eyes filled with love, “Let me love you. Let me show you how much I love you.” He whispers against your lips. His head bowing into the crook of your neck, his nose dragging down your neck to press his lips against the spot he knows so well. Letting out a whimper, you nodded, pulling him in closer.

And that was all he needed to hear.

His mouth travels down, teasing your breasts that were hidden under your satin tank top that Taehyung had gifted you for your birthday last year. It was a pretty pink set with matching satin shorts that you had been eyeing for quite some time, but never had the heart to splurge for it—but little did you know Taehyung had already bought the little piece before you had hinted at it.

Your mind was disrupted when Taehyung began tugging at your straps, slipping it off your body swiftly, before latching his mouth around your bud, causing you to arch your back into him. The swirl of his tongue against your hardened nipple makes you moan out for him—and he loves it.

“So pretty for me, baby.” He groans, the sound of your moans effecting him greatly, his cock stirring in his pajama pants. He continued his assault on your sensitive bud, switching to give the other side the same amount of attention, before trailing his tongue down your sternum. Trailing wet kisses towards your navel, gently pressing a harder kiss on your most sensitive area. Hurriedly, Taehyung slips your shorts off and flings it across the room and leans back to admire you.

There you laid, completely and utterly bare in front of him. He’s seen you countless of times, but this time it was different. Sure, the two of you were very active, majority of the time it would be hurried, quiet in hopes to not disturb Aera who was residing just down the hall; he’d take you hard and fast, just the way you both liked it. But tonight, Taehyung wanted to take his time with you, pour all his love unto you, shower you in the love you deserved.

“Tae…” You whined, grabbing his hands, and gesturing him to come closer, to hug you, to feel you. And how could he say no with your sultry eyes and your hair sprawled perfectly across his pillows like a goddess.

He dips down to kiss your lips again, gently tugging on your lower lip, earning a whimper from you as he goes down to face your heat. He can see your folds glistening with the little light seeping in from the windows. Peering up he can see your eyes closed, your chest rising and falling incredibly quick, and your lips tucked between your teeth—and what a sight that was for him. He couldn’t help but lick a hot stripe up your folds, finding your pretty pearl that awaited attention—attention that he was happily about to give. Sucking your clit gently, rolling it between his lips, you let out a breathy moan, wrapping your hands in his hair. Tugging gently at the golden strands and rolling your hips up to grind against the sinful acts of his lips. His tongue finding its way back to your seeping hole, prodding your entrance with his wet muscle before he pulls away to kiss your clit.

“Why-why did you stop?” You asked breathlessly, your eyes find his—and you were sure that he looked exactly like you, absolutely drunk off the feeling of being with each other, stunningly fucked out. He hadn’t done much to you at all, barely ate you out and you were at his mercy.

“Wanna try something,” He pulls you up and falls on his back to stare up at you. He had seated you directly on his hardened member, exciting you more. He stares up at you with a lazy smirk, “c’mere, sit on my face, pretty girl.”

You felt heat rush to your face and towards your lower region as you shuffle closer to his waiting lips. Three years together, and you rarely sat on his face. You couldn’t remember the last time you had—if you even did. Like the impatient man he was, Taehyung tugged you directly onto his mouth, his battered breathing against you almost made you sit entirely on his face right then and there, however Taehyung began speaking before you could.

“This’kay?” He whispers, eyes trained on yours. You nodded slightly before you lowered your hips to his waiting lips. You felt the warmth of his tongue back inside you, his hands gripping your ass, encouraging you to rock your hips against him, to use him for your pleasure. He sloppily licks up to your clit, sucking it into his mouth, before turning his head to pepper kisses between your thighs, taking your folds in between his lips and sucking, biting—your head was spinning. You felt his fingers snake its way to your front, feeling him slick his finger up with your essence, before latching his mouth onto your clit again, sucking on it while he pushes a finger inside you.

“Fuck.” He groans as your hole tightens around his digit, sucking him in as he pumps in and out of you, “So pretty for me.”

His mouth, along with his fingers were absolutely sinful, he himself was a sin. Your mind was completely empty, nothing but the pleasure Taehyung was giving you occupied it as you chased your high, grinding down against the handsome man underneath you.

“Fu-fuck,” You gasped, rocking faster against his working tongue, clenching around his finger, you bit your lip when you felt another digit pressing against your opening. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head the minute Taehyung sunk his second finger deep inside you, a whine bubbling in your throat, feeling him fill you up so prettily with his long fingers.

“That’s it, jagi.” Taehyung grunts, unlatching himself from your sensitive pearl, “Close?” Nodding your head furiously, rocking your hips harder against him, his mouth finding your clit again and sucking harsher than before. The knot in your stomach tightens, moaning out for him to go harder, only for him to comply, growling into your sopping cunt as he pushes his fingers faster—wanting you to come undone on his face.

It didn’t take long for you to finish, with Taehyung’s free hand, he groped your ass tightly, shoving you closer into his mouth, moving his tongue side to side to stimulate your clit further, and that was enough to push you over the edge. Falling forward, you grip his hair in between your hands, pushing yourself down onto him harder, practically suffocating the poor man, yelping out in pure ecstasy as you came on his tongue. Chanting his name like a prayer, your hips stuttering as you feel yourself coming down. Taehyung rubs soothing circles on your thighs, gently pulling his soaking fingers out of you, whimpering as he does so, but only for you to sigh gratefully that his tongue was back inside you, cleaning you up. It wasn’t hurried, or quick; Taehyung’s tongue was gentle and soft, licking and pressing kisses wherever his tongue touched. Your hands loosely combs out the knots in his hair, brushing it away from his face as you admired him.

With a final kiss to your clit, which sends your body jolting forward, Taehyung scoots up from under you, gently pushing you to lay down next to him.

“I love you.” He whispers, bring your lips onto his. You could taste yourself faintly on his lips, but that never bothered either of you. Your tongues intertwined with one another like a tango, as he pulls you closer.

“I love you.” You agree, pressing another kiss to his lips, a ghost of a smile graces your fucked out faces. You slide down the bed untying the strings of his pants, kissing down his body, similarly to the way he did with you.

“Y/n—”

“Please,” You glanced up at him with your lower lip jutted out, “wanna make you feel good too, Tae.” You can see the lust resurfacing in his hazy eyes, he grunts as you pull him out of his confinements, holding his cock delicately in your hands.

“May I?”

How can he say no when you’re looking at him like that? The innocent face of his girlfriend staring at him with his cock in her hands—you almost looked innocent—almost, but Taehyung knew better. You were a minx, a dangerous woman, the definition of lust. And he was so unbelievably lucky to be able to call you his.

You didn’t wait for his response, lowering your head to press a little kiss on his swollen tip. Everything about Taehyung was beautiful, absolutely everything. It’s no surprise that the man sculpted by angels, was also gifted under the belt. He’s long, and not extremely thick, but enough to give you a pleasurable stretch to accommodate his size, and the best part was that he knew exactly how to use it. Stroking his member gently, poking your tongue out to lick a bit of his sweetness, you hear Taehyung sharply suck in air through clenched teeth. Looking up at him with hooded eyes, his very own was trained on you, lips caught between his teeth, watching your every move. Smirking to yourself, you drag your tongue down his lengthy shaft and back up to capture the thick head between your full lips, sucking him into your mouth.

“Oh fuck-“ Taehyung hissed, winding his fingers in your hair, “Your mouth is—god—so heavenly.” Teasing the tip more, you circled your tongue around it taking it back into your mouth, and slowly going down on him, pressing your nose against his pubic bone.

“Holy shit!” You pulled back to breath, peering up at Taehyung with his mouth hanging open in awe, “H-how did—”

“Secret.” You winked at him and you took him into your mouth once again, allowing him to push deeply into your throat (you can thank tiktok for the tips on how to get rid of your gag reflex). The blissful face Taehyung makes, pushes you to start bobbing your head up and down his cock, his grunts, and moans, along with the lewd noises of his cock hitting the back of your throat fills the bedroom.

“Oh-baby—fuck—just like that. Yes.”

You continued pleasuring him, hollowing out your cheeks and sucking him a little harder, earning a grumbled moan from him, tugging your hair harder down onto his cock, thrusting his hips up to meet your lips.

“B-baby—” Taehyung mewled, “o-off please, don’t wanna—don’t wanna cum yet.” He unwillingly released his hands from your hair, allowing you to pull off with a pop, pressing a gentle kiss on the angry tip. He dragged your body up his, immediately locking your lips in a searing kiss, pushing his tongue in gently to deepen it.

Three years.

Three years of being together and you still got butterflies. The kisses always held a spark, the cuddles always made your heart flutter, the little moments with Aera still made you feel complete. They made you feel complete. You knew from the start you wanted life with them, with both Aera and Taehyung—and even now, with you naked on top of him, while he too, was lacking any sort of clothing (you weren’t even sure when he had time to strip himself), you still want a future with him.

You could feel Taehyung pressing himself against your center, teasing your hole, the anticipation killing you.

“You gonna push in or..?” Taehyung snorted, pecking your lips quickly and pulling away.

“You’re so not romantic, my love.” His hand reaches down to grip the base of his hardened length, guiding it towards your sopping entrance. You bit your lip the minute he pushed in, and the both of you let out a moan of relief. Finally getting what you both wanted.

“Fuck.”

“Fuck.”

You rolled your hips on top of him, his palms on your ass, moving along with him, grinding pleasantly against each other. His hands harshly squeeze your flesh, earning a low growl from him the faster you rocked your hips.

“S-so tight still, what the fuck?”

Your eyes rolled back, biting your lip, “Would you rather me be loose?”

“Babeeee.” Taehyung whines, “I-fucking hell- I mean this in the nicest way possible,” His thrusts pick up, pushing your back against the bed, eyes glowering with lust, “Please shut the fuck up, and enjoy this dick.”

You clenched around him, sucking his cock in deeper, mewling at the feeling of his cock twitching inside you.

“Fuck,” He growls, dipping his head down to graze his teeth along your neck, “Fuck—I love you. I love you; I love you; I love you.”

“Need-need to cum, please Tae.” You groan against his ear, his hips thrusting harder into you, his breathing ragged.

“Me too, oh fuck.”

With a final thrust, Taehyung’s hips stills as you yelp from how deep he pushed in, feeling your walls being painted white, your body arches up to have him deeper than he already was. Taehyung curses at the sight; your bodies connected, pussy clenched tightly around his thick girth, your body arched up towards him, and your fists clenching beside your head. He peers down to admire the way your pussy clenched around him, your arousals mixing together, as some seeps out of your hole.

Pausing for a moment, Taehyung pulls himself out gently, rolling beside you; you shiver at the loss of being full, but you snuggle under his arm, gathering the warmth you could from your own personal furnace.

“I love you.” You whispered against his bare chest, his fingers drawing up and down your arms, like he always does after your bedroom festivities.

“I love you more than you know, princess.”

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New Years

“Nari, no!”

You looked behind you to see Yoongi’s hands in his hair, frantically running towards his daughter, who was climbing all over the gasless fireplace and from the looks of it, she looked like she was going to jump for the fun of it.

“Your kid is crazy.” You giggle at Seung, who just shrugged.

“She got it from her mama.” Seung winked at you, before running towards Yoongi, his face contorted into a scowl as he lectures his daughter.

It was now New Year’s Eve, about 20 minutes until the new year, and your entire friend group had decided that it would be fun to rent out a huge cabin to enjoy the day. And when you say huge… You mean huge.

The place had 7 quadrants, along with this living space in the middle of it all. Each family had their own quadrant, which was basically like a house within itself—minus the fact they it doesn’t have a kitchen, since there was a large kitchen attached to the living space that you were all currently in.

Not much had happen between Aera’s birthday, Christmas, and Tae’s birthday; however, you all celebrated together, but then again, that was nothing new at all.

“Mum?”

You immediately turned away from the Min’s to stare at Aera who was bouncing towards you with a smile and a juice pouch in one hand.

“What’s up, flower?” You crouched down to her height with a grin.

“Where’s dad?”

This caught you off guard. Last you saw Taehyung, he was with Jimin and Soomi, tossing the little girl like a football in the living room. Now that you really thought about it… That was at least half an hour ago.

Peering around the room, you noticed that the Min’s were cuddled on the couch watching the New Year’s celebrations on the television; Mi-ha was at the kitchen table with Namjoon and Yoon-ji playing chess, while Hobi hovered over the three, making small talk and giggling; the Park’s were playing a matching game on the floor with Soomi; Rae and Haru were seated on the floor with Mujin and Youngji who were conversating by themselves, while their mother’s had a conversation of their own; Jin’s family was on the opposite couch of the Min’s, Yuna and Ji-hoon’s head bobbing as their two parent’s continued to watch the celebration.

But no, Taehyung.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion… Where did he go?

“Anyone seen Tae?” You asked, earning a chorus of “no’s” and “dunno”.

“Bummer.” Aera grunts, crossing her arms, “You should really find him! It’s almost count down, plus—” Aera flails her arms, “You and dad haven’t missed a New Year’s kiss in three years!”

“Yeah, that’s like, so weird, that he’s not here…” Jimin hides his knowing smirk, confusing you even more.

“Hm… Maybe you should check outside? Maybe the balcony, you know how Tae adores that balcony.” Mi-ha suggests giving you a warm grin.

Your eyes narrowed, “Why do I have this uneasy feeling that you all are up to something?”

“Us?” Yoongi scoffs, putting a hand to his heart, “How dare you accuse us of such nonsense. As a fi—ow!”

“As a fine woman such as yourself,” Seung scolds Yoongi, who was rubbing his arm from his wife’s assault, “aren’t you a little worried that, oh, I don’t know, lost your long-term boyfriend?”

“In a house?” You deadpan.

“Y/n, it’s a big house… You know how hyung can get—aish—overwhelmed” Jungkook states breathlessly running into the living space from God knows where.

“Wait a minute… Where have you been?” You pressed, watching Jungkook’s doe eyes grow wider.

“Uh—I was—running, you know, outside!”

“Okay,” You shake your head, “What is going on here? Why are you all acting as if you know what’s happening and I’m the only one that’s out of the loop? Where’s Taehyung?”

“Ouuuu,” Aera mocks, “Mom’s in mom modeeee.”

Before you could utter out another word, Mi-ha rushes to you and pushes you towards your quadrant of the house, opening the connecting door to your hallway, and shoving you in, and blocking the door.

“Hey what the heck!!” You screeched, fists banging on the door. To your annoyance, you could hear the rest of your friends laughing and giggling as they worked together to keep you blocked in.

“Just go to your room! You won’t regret it!” You hear Jimin shout through fits of laughter. Grunting out in annoyance you step away from the room and followed the hallway down towards your shared room with Taehyung.

“I swear to fuck if I die.” You mumbled under your breath. Suddenly feeling at ease when you see rose petals leading towards your bedroom, along with tealight candles decorating the hardwood floor. Your heart was pounding, all of a sudden nervous.

What’s going on?

You reached your bedroom to see the door slightly ajar, so you pushed on it.

There, standing in the middle of your bedroom, was your handsome boyfriend; dressed in all white with his boxy smile on his face the minute you entered.

“Tae?”

“You found me!” He chuckles coming forward, “I thought you really didn’t care that you hadn’t seen me all night.”

You scoffed, “Don’t be dramatic… It was like half an hour.”

“Half an hour too long, jagi.” He smiled taking your hands in his and wrapping it around his neck, “What time is it?”

“Uhm,” You peered around him to stare at the clock on the wall, “11:58.”

“Aiiish—gotta do this quick then huh?” Before you could ask him what he was talking about, Taehyung sighs.

“Tae—what’s going on?”

“You know I love you, right?” That was never a good sign—you know that line from every romance movie ever… He was about to break things off…

“Wh-what? I-yeah of course I know…” You whisper, tears suddenly forming in your eyes, “Tae are—are you breaking up with me..?”

Taehyung’s eyes widened, his eyes filled with panic, “Wh—what? No, baby, no, no!” You sucked in a huge breath of air.

“OH, thank fuck!”

“Quite the opposite, actually.” Taehyung scratches the back of his neck, pulling out a velvet box that made your eyes widened.

“Are-are you?”

“I love you, Y/n. I have never loved anyone so much—never met anyone who fit perfectly in Aera’s life But, there’s something about you, from the moment we first met, I knew there was something special about you. We’ve been through a lot, most of it my fault for being so confusing—but we’re here now. And—” Taehyung looks at you, watery eyes staring at your own, “you remember when we first got together? I said I wanted to do life with you?”

You nodded, suddenly feeling your throat close up at what you know is coming. Your heart is so full, that you weren’t sure you were going to be able to respond at all.

“Well…” Taehyung gets down on one knee, staring up at you, “Now, I wanna do forever with you…” He opens the box to the prettiest ring you had ever seen; simple, yet elegant. So, you.

“Y/n, will you do forever with me as my life partner, as my soulmate, as Mrs. Kim? Will you marry me?”

Choking back a sob you bend down to connect your lips to his. Enclosing his soft lips around yours, molding together as one. Taehyung places a hand on your cheek, deepening the kiss and wiping away the tears that you didn’t realize had fallen. The love that was put into that kiss along… You could get used to this for the rest of your life. Pulling away from Taehyung, you both giggled, planting soft pecks against each others lips again, before Taehyung smirks at you.

“Is that a yes?” Hitting his arm, you nodded.

“Of course, Tae…” Pecking your lips one more time, Taehyung takes the ring and slips in onto your ring finger, pulling you in for another kiss.

“What time is it now, baby?” He mumbles against your mouth.

“Hmm?” You hummed, still feeling like you were on cloud nine, you look behind your fiancé’s head.

“00:05.” As the words left your mouth, Taehyung captures your lips once more; fireworks could be heard outside your bedroom, along with the hollers and screeches coming from your friends, but right at this moment—it seemed like the world had faded away; it felt as if the only people on the world right now was you and Taehyung.

"Aiiish, I'm five minutes late for our New Year's kiss..." Taehyung pouts cutely, sucking his bottom lip in, you giggled brushing his hair out of his face, pecking his lips one more time.

"Nah, it's okay bub," You smiled up at him, "Hm... Although, I'm a little peeved that you got everyone in on your proposal and none of them told me... Buncha fakes."

Taehyung laughs loudly, pulling you closer into a hug, "Princess... I had been hinting at proposing for a while."

"Huh?"

"Did you think I was asking your ring sizes for shits and giggles?"

"Well..."

Taehyung snorted, pressing a kiss to your forehead, "You're so damn lucky you're cute."

Taehyung fiddles with his ring on your finger as the two of you leave your bedroom to share the happy news with your friends, to which they all cheered loudly and hugged the both of you, along with Aera planting a soft kiss on each of your cheeks.

After all the two of you had been through, along with the amazing friendships you had made—not to forget the amazing daughter than you helped raise—you were finally getting your happy ending, and you couldn’t wait what the future has in store for you three.

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tag list: @belladaises @chimmysomemochi @kirbykook @ggukkieland @taeandpuppies @betysotelo18 @maichiverse @rjsmochii @vaekth @hantaev @purelyecstacy @preciouschimine @jenotation @dear-thama @gukkmoans @taestycake @xpeachesncream @kookingtae @writtenwhalien @otherwvrldly

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a/n: and that's a wrap for "colours"!!! I'm so happy you all have enjoyed this mini ride, and I'm so thankful for all the love and support I have gotten on this story.

~

special shout out to @xpeachesncream for being my support system throughout my writing journey ((: love ya long time, Nikki<3

~

I hope that you enjoyed this epilogue for our "colours" couple, like I said, it's not the end of them, so please look forward to future drabbles and whatnot (:.

thank you so so much, i love you.

- ella

[mildkleptomaniac]

brunch — jj maybank x kook!reader

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭:  “ Can you do a jj x reader? He's a waiter at the club and her family is there for brunch, her parents don't know about their relationship and are kinda rude to him. Reader's done with their attitude and deffends jj and reveals their relationship by accident and her parents get mad. Love all your fics, you're so talented! ”

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.6k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: just some angst and an outburst! rude parents

𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆: sorry this took forever to get out! school semester just started, along with a new job. and I’m finally in the process of feeling better. I’m posting this on mobile so sorry if they layout is weird, but I hope you enjoy!

Y/N sat at the table, her parents sitting across from her as they stared at the menu. According to her parents, the world ran around them. They didn’t seem to care that they would take more than enough time to order and then usher the waiter over whenever it would be convenient for them. They would manage to make brunch turn into dinner with the amount of time they would sit at the table and slowly pick at the bread for an appetizer while slowly sipping their mimosas.

Y/N enjoyed going out for meals, but never with her parents. Sometimes she felt like she had to babysit them, especially with how they treated employees. She always apologized whenever the waiter would catch a glance at Y/N and she would give them an apologetic smile. Not to mention the amount of times she would slip in a few extra bills for the tip. Her parents were harsh when it came to the working class, which she didn’t quite understand.

But today at the Kildare Country Club, Y/N’s boyfriend would be their waiter.

JJ Maybank.

Y/N’s secret Pogue boyfriend. He was the boy that her parents would fear for her to fall in love with because they knew all too well about his family and their history. Her parents would remind her of the “better” selection of boys to pick from, which either included Kelce or Topper. Luckily her parents never mentioned Rafe Cameron—it’s almost like they knew in their gut that he wasn’t the best candidate to date.

Y/N’s parents feared that Pogues will just use her to get further in life and that she’s just some doormat to her friends. But that wasn’t the case at all, if anything—Y/N was the glue to the friend group after she began dating JJ.

A few lies a week would keep her parents fooled, thinking she was spending her time studying or volunteering when in reality, she was relaxing at the Chateau or lounging on the HMS Pogue in JJ’s lap as they sipped on cheap beers.

“Good morning, folks. My name is JJ and I’ll be your waiter today. Can I start you off with anything to drink?” The blonde flashed his smile at the table, his eyes meeting Y/N’s. A comfort washed over the girl, his gaze always soothed any tension built in her body.

“Isn’t it Mimosa Sunday?” Her mother glanced upwards from the menu, voice flat.

“Yes, m’am. Bottomless Mimosas all Sunday.” JJ replied.

“Then get it started. Y/N would have a glass of water.” Her mother’s eyes flickered back to the menu. Y/N pursed her lips, shifting in her seat.

“What would you like to drink, miss?” JJ asked Y/N, ignoring her mother’s statement. Her eyes widened and she cleared her throat.

“I’ll take a sweet ice tea, please. With a side of water, please.” She made sure to emphasize the word ‘please’ around her parents. A term to slip their vocabulary whenever they were brought face to face with the working class.

“Y/N, don’t waste your calories on a drink.” Her mother shook her head.

“It’d be okay and I don’t want to talk about that right now in front of the waiter.” She remarked through her teeth, eyes looking back between her parents and her boyfriend.

“One sweet tea and bottomless Mimosas coming right up.” He jotted the order on his pad before turning on his heel. Y/N’s father cleared his throat and it caught JJ’s attention.

“Young man, we weren’t done ordering. We would like to place an order for an appetizer.”

Y/N could feel her shoulders ache from how pinched they were with tension. Her parents absolutely embarrassed her to no end with their lack of consideration or manners. She’s surprised they got this far in life by treating people like this. They were no different than any other person.

“We would like the Mini Herb Smoked Salmon Frittatas with Deviled Eggs.” Y/N’s father read off the menu.

“I’ll get that in as soon as possible, sir. And I’ll be right out with the drinks.” He smiled before walking away. He glanced back at his girlfriend and sent her a reassuring smile, trying to let her know that he was doing okay.

She knew her parents weren’t the worse to deal with, but they could be difficult.

“I’m surprised they allow a Maybank to work at this establishment. He probably steals all the soaps and colognes from the bathroom and sells them on the street.” Her father laughed, shaking his head.

“Oh honey, you’re probably right. His father is such a sleaze, I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes the boy bring home scraps from the dumpster!”

“I’m sorry, but what the hell is wrong with you both?” Y/N questioned, her eyebrows furrowed as she stared in distaste at her parent’s banter.

“Excuse me, young lady. Watch your language.” Her father reprimanded.

“Excuse me? Excuse you! You don’t even know JJ and you’re talking poorly about him. Obviously, he is working hard to make money. Bold of you to assume that he isn’t a hard worker—but he is. Do you not see him mowing lawns for the neighbors? Helping Hayward run groceries on the docks? If his family’s wealth is such an issue to you, why not help donate clothes and food to him?” Y/N’s outburst caught other tables' attention. She stood up in her spot, her hands clenching the table cloth.

“Y/N, you are causing a scene. You need to sit down right now or else you’re in major trouble.” Her mother’s voice was sharp.

JJ walked to the table, pretending to be oblivious to his girlfriend’s statements, which the whole restaurant practically heard her defending him. “Here are the Mimosas and the sweet tea. The starters will be out shortly. Can I get you anything else in the meantime?” He faked a smile.

“I don’t care if I’m causing a scene, because you’re causing a problem! You’re being rude for absolutely I reason towards JJ.” She remained standing and JJ stood there awkwardly, unsure of what the right move would be in this situation.

“Why do you care about this, Pogue? He has no meaning to our lives—he doesn’t benefit society, sweetheart.” Her father spoke in a softer tone.

“You’re unbelievable, dad! JJ Maybank is a human being who works to survive! He isn’t some scummy person and—in fact, he is my boyfriend! Mom, Dad, meet my boyfriend, JJ Maybank.” Y/N finally snapped and she gestured towards the blonde who stood there. He looked like a deer in headlights.

“Y/N, stop embarrassing the poor boy at work and yourself.” Her mother’s face grew red—she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment herself.

“I’m not embarrassing myself, mom. This is my boyfriend. We’ve been dating for a few months now and this is where I’ve been. I’ve been dating a Pogue. You’re sweet, precious daughter is dating this Pogue. And he is actually fantastic and cares about me—more than you two ever do!” She threw her fabric napkin on the table before reaching into her purse. She pulled out a rather large dollar bill and stuffed it into JJ’s pocket. “Here is a tip that they won’t be giving you, babe. But I think you deserve it.” Y/N kissed his cheek before walking away from the table.

JJ cleared his throat and looked around the area, “would you like a different waiter, today?”

Y/N went inside the Country Club and paced around the entrance way. She ran a hand through her hair and she tried calming herself down. She had never had that much confidence to confront her parents like that, but she knew she would face the consequences when she would go home.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and she turned around to face her boyfriend.

“JJ—I am so sorry all of that happened and—“ He interrupted her by cupping her cheeks and pulling her in for a kiss.

“You’re so hot when you’re mad and defending me.” He whispered against her lips. She let out a light laugh and they kissed once more. “You don’t need to apologize babe, what you did was awesome. Insane, but awesome.”

“My parents are going to kill me,” she laughed again. The reality setting in quickly.

“Then stay at the Chateau with me tonight. What’s gonna happen that’s not already? Plus, we can sleep together and I can have you tell everyone how you had a scene at brunch.” He teased, his fingers playing with the ends of her hair.

“That…that sounds nice.” She sighed, closing her eyes. JJ pressed a kiss to the temple of her head.

“I also put in your breakfast order if you wanna eat at the bar. I used the money you gave me for it.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. She looked at him gratefully.

“You’re the best, J. I love you,”

“Even if I’m a Pogue?”

“Most definitely if you’re a Pogue. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

taglist: @abbyg217 @taylathornton @lemur46 @urdadsapussy @webmeupspiderdaddy  @rosarosse @5sos-fic-recs @littlethingsinmymind @pogueslandia @mrs-cameron @starduststarkey @jjshoeobx29872 @caswinchester2000 @starksvixen @mrs-talia-cameron @newtpsd @rottenstyx @professional-busboy @hallecarey1 @alwaysclassyeagle @cake2coke @siriusbutalsono @princessmaybank @wolfstar-lb @jorja-cameron @emeraldheartbreaker @nicavass